


Time Isn't Real (but you're a constant)

by SpiritsFlame



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, M/M, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 87,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4779728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritsFlame/pseuds/SpiritsFlame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once." - Albert Einstein.</p><p>Adam wakes up in the future, learns a few things about himself, about time, and about his priorities. But mostly he just wishes that Time was doing it's job better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Adam doesn’t dream often. He doesn’t dream pleasantly when he does. Sometimes he envies Ronan his living dreams, before his mind flashes back to memories of night terrors that can kill you in the real world. Sometimes, the flash memories of a large shape looming over him doesn’t seem so bad in comparison.

If he has more conventional dreams, of standing in front of a classroom in his boxers or of alligators that fly into the sunset, he can’t remember them.

Tonight, he dreams. Persephone stands in front of him, her hair a silver waterfall down her back. She stands in front of an old fashioned captain’s wheel, handles jutting out all around the rim, but the center is a clock. It’s the dull flatness of a school clock, perfectly marked and evenly spaced. Persephone wears a decadent evening gown, tip to toe white sequins. She smiles big and fake, like he never saw Persephone smile in real life. She gestures at the wheel like Vana White, like he saw on countless reruns of Wheel of Fortune, splashing bright colors onto the walls of their trailer while bottle after bottle fell to the floor.

Persephone flourishes at the wheel, then gives it a spin. He can’t look away from the way the wheel turns and turns and turns. It sucks him in, a spinning void of clock and wheel and darkness. Then the hands on the clock melt like a Dali painting and Adam is the one spinning. He spins around and around and Persephone is everywhere in her white evening gown, the sequins throwing off light like a disco ball. She tries to press a card into his hands as he spins. Wheel of Fortune. Persephone laughs and laughs and laughs.

Adam wakes up with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed. He sucks in breath like he’s drowning, trying to force air into lungs that feel weak and torn. He feels like he’s been running for miles, and he can’t get enough air. Persephone’s, dream Persephone’s, laugh rings in his ears.

It takes a moment to get his breathing to slow down, and another minute of counting slow breaths before his heart rate goes back to normal. Something is off, something is wrong, but sleep is sucking him back. When his head hits the pillow again, he thinks he hears someone else breathing. But he is so warm, and the bed is so soft. It must be the wind. And then he is asleep.

It’s the sun that wakes Adam up next, shining warm rays onto his eyes. He drifts for a moment, luxuring in an unusual sense of comfort. His attic room is always too hot or too cold, depending on the season, and he can’t remember his twin mattress ever feeling this soft.

Then, slowly, that sense of wrongness hits him again, creeping in on the edge of his consciousness, edging out the sleep fog in his brain. His bed shouldn’t be this soft. The light is usually brighter than this. Someone is breathing next to him. Someone is breathing next to him. Adam’s eyes shoot open. Ronan is sleeping next to him. Adam scrambles back, and is snagged by Ronan’s arm, resting across his stomach.

Adam yanks back and almost falls out of the bed. His heart is racing again. What happened last night? He racks his mind and comes up with studying. Latin conjugations and calculus homework. Ronan hadn’t even stopped by St. Agnes. No alcohol, no drugs. Nothing that could explain Ronan Lynch, shirtless in his bed.

Except. Except, as Adam looks around, it becomes more than clear that this is not his room. It’s not any room he knows, not Monmouth Manufacturing or even 300 Fox Way. It’s light and open and airy in a way that makes him think of the Barns. Except, of course, that they haven’t been to the Barns in weeks.

He reaches for Ronan’s shoulder and shakes him. Ronan is sleep-warm and soft skin under his hand. Adam ignores it. “Ronan,” he hisses. “Wake up! Something is wrong.” Cabeswater, he thinks. It has to be. Teleportation, or memory loss or dream landscape. It makes blood rish to his face to think that this could be a dream Cabeswater would put him in, in a soft bed, clutched close to Ronan’s chest, but it’s not- well. It’s not out of the question. It’s not, precisely, something that he’s never thought about.

He almost laughs. Most teens wake up with no memory and worrie about alcohol. He worries about magical sentient forests.

“Lynch!” He shakes Ronan’s shoulder.

“Fuck off, Adam,” Ronan bats at Adam’s hand sleepily, and the sound of his name on Ronan’s lips, sleep muddled and affectionate, makes him pause for a second.

Just a second though. “Get up, you asshole,” Adam snaps. “Something is wrong.” He pulls, rolling Ronan towards him. Ronan flings an arm up to cover his face and Adam is momentarily arrested by the span of muscles over his chest, in his arm. Ronan isn’t wearing his leather bands. It seems terribly important.

“Go away,” Ronan groans. Despite his urgency, Adam is oddly charmed by this sleepy Ronan. He’s only ever seen him snap awake, like a rubberband pulled too tight. This Ronan is unknown and soft. Then he is caught up again in the rush of what, why, how, and he shoves at Ronan’s arm. “Oh my god, this is your first day off in six months, can’t it wait?” Ronan turns his head to bury it in the pillow under him.

“Get the fuck up, Lynch, something is really wrong.”

Ronan rolls his head lazily to look at Adam. Their eyes meet. For a moment, they both stare. Then Ronan recoils, “Holy motherfucking Jesus Christ!" He sits upright and back so fast he almost smashes his skull on the headboard. Adam can relate.

The man is clearly Ronan, but he’s not the Ronan Adam knows. His hair is grown out, for one. Not much, not enough to tell from the back, but it curls ever so slightly on the top of his head, still shaved in the back and the sides. Undercut, Adam thinks, with the distant part of his mind that is still recording facts. There are unfamiliar lines on Ronan’s face, laughter and care and time carved into his skin. His stubble is more than the light shadow he grows to piss Gansey off but creeps something that could almost be called a beard. Unfamilar tattoos curl around his arm, the one that had been hidden under his body. He is, unmistakably, an adult. Not in the aged, tired way he sometimes seems too grown up for his skin, but in an unshakable way, marked by crows feet and laugh lines.

“What is happening?” Adam asks, and his voice is weak. Ronan reaches out with one hand, then pulls back before making contact.

“Parrish?” Ronan asks, like he can’t quite believe what he is seeing.

“Who else would I be?” Adam snaps, and Ronan’s face goes closed. He stands up, throwing the blanket off him as he goes. Adam goes furiously red and tries to pretend that he’s not when he sees that Ronan is naked. There are more unfamiliar tattoos on Ronan’s legs and, Adam goes even more red, on his ass. Adam averts his eyes before he can see what they are.

“Adam?” Ronan calls, sticking his head into the open doorway across the room. Tiled floors. Adam is willing to put money on bathroom.

“I’m right here.”

“Not you,” Ronan says shortly. He calls again, pulling the bedroom door open. “Adam?”

“Who else then?” he grits out. His interest in Ronan being naked is starting to fade, replaced with the familiar rush of irritation.

“Adam,” Ronan says nonsensically, still not looking at him. He pads out into the hall, completely unconcerned with his own nakedness. Adam bites his lip to keep from screaming and follows him.

“I’m right here!” he says again. Ronan ignores him, wandering around house, for it is a house, Adam can see that now. Not the Barns though. Every now and then, Ronan will call for him again, and Adam is seriously debating punching him. He finally loses his temper when Ronan checks, off all things, a cell phone.

Adam walks up and yanks it out of his hands. “Look at me, you colossal asshole.”

Ronan just looks at him, coolly amused. His eyes are still distant and Adam wants to push and push until Ronan gives him that seared to the bone look Adam has become accustomed to. Then Ronan gives him a slow once over, head to toes. Adam is abruptly aware of his ratty, faded boxers and his sleep shirt with the holes in the shoulder and hem. He feels naked, and he has to clench his hands at his side to stop from covering himself. Ronan, the Ronan he knows, has seen him like this a hundred times and never had any complaints.

“I’m looking,” Ronan drawls, slow as honey and sarcastic as hell. Adam wants to punch him. There is something different about him. More than the hair and the tattoos and the age. Something sure. Adam crosses his arms across his chest. There is nothing sure about Adam himself, and he has never been more aware of it.

“Do you know what is happening?” he asks.

Ronan glances down at his phone, then back up. He laughs ruefully. “Adam isn’t here.” Adam opens his mouth to snap, to yell, something, and Ronan cuts him off. “Not you. Other you. Future you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Maybe. Probably.”

“What,” Adam says slowly, “the fuck.”

Ronan shakes his head. “Would you believe I totally forgot about it? I bet Adam had it marked in his calendar, that fucking asshole.”

“Forgot about what?” Adam snaps, reaching the end of his patience.

Ronan gives him a look. It’s still shuttered, still distant, but at least now Adam sees something like affection. “It’s 2025. Welcome to your future, Parrish.”

 

* * *

 

It feels surreal, Adam sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands, trying to take deep breaths while Ronan makes pancakes in sweatpants that slip distracting low on his hips.

“Syrup?” Ronan asks shortly, practically dropping the plate in front of Adam. In contrast to his tone, there is a whipped cream smiley face on the top pancake and it makes Adam smile.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He nudges the pancakes a few times with his fork, watching as the whipped cream slowly melts into the heat of the pancakes. “Are we going to talk about this?”

Ronan slides a jar of peanut butter over to him, and sits down. “Eat your damn breakfast.”

Adam slowly spreads peanut butter over his pancakes, trying not to stare too obviously. Ronan makes no such attempt, taking slow measured bites and watching as Adam scrapes the excess peanut butter onto the edge of his plate, then reaches for the syrup.

“I love peanut butter,” Adam admits. It’s as much of a thank you as he’s willing to give now, with how uncommunicative Ronan is being. The pancakes are perfect, the heat of the syrup and the rich taste of the peanut butter. It reminds him of the few good days, when his mom would make pancakes and his dad would ruffle his hair genially. Back when he was still his father’s idea of a good son.

Ronan’s mouth twitches upwards. “I know.”

Adam ducks his head. This Ronan has spent a life with him. He must know that Adam prefers his syrup heated. That he hates citrus, and loves pumpkin pie. It’s terrifying.  
I am unknowable, Adam thinks, on reflex. He feels like an idiot. He finishes his pancakes in silence, pressed under the hot weight of Ronan’s eyes.

“What?” he snaps, after he’s done eating. He learned young not to start anything, or start something that could be anything, while he was eating. Not if he wanted to finish his meal. He hates how the memory has stuck with him, that is infecting this warm and sunlit place.

“You’re so young,” Ronan’s voice is thoughtful. “I had forgotten.”

Adam bristles. “I’m 18!”

Ronan grins his sharp grin, and there is something comforting about how little that has changed. “Exactly.”

Adam lets his knife and fork clatter to his plate. “Cut the crap, Lynch. What the fuck is going on.”

The room is brightly lit, sunlight coming in from wide windows around the kitchen. It’s exactly the kind of place that Adam has always wanted to live, as far from the cramped, dark kitchen he was raised in as it was possible to get. Adam is abruptly aware of how much of a home this is as Ronan takes his dishes and dumps them in the sink. His home. Ronan’s home. Their home, apparently.

“You’re not going to believe me,” Ronan says, leaning on the counter. He is one long slant of muscle and shadow, a slash mark in the clean light of the kitchen.

Adam gives him a flat look. “You would be surprised by my threshold for belief.” He’s pleased when it makes Ronan bark a laugh.

Ronan runs a hand over the back of his head, an wrenchingly familiar gesture. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was in bed. I had a fucked up dream, and then I was here.”

“No, asshole. In your, fuck, I don’t know, your timeline or some shit. When are you from?”

“Christ.” Adam scrubs his hands over his face. He can’t believe he is even having this conversation. “We just got Maura back. From Cabeswater. Or, not Cabeswater, I guess. Persephone is dead and no one has any answers and Gansey is supposed to die and everything is fucked all to hell and even with all of that, I'm still wondering if my college admission essay will be good enough to get me into Harvard!”

“It will,” Ronan says absently. This his eyes sharpen back on Adam's face. “Ignore that. At least I know when that is. Senior year. We're looking for Glendower. You're still in love with Blue Sargent.”

“I am not!” Of all the things that Ronan has said, that somehow feels the most immediate. The most pressing. Maybe it's the way Ronan says it, bitter even though it's been ten years. Closed, even in the middle of his own home.

“No?” Ronan tilts his head, in a way that makes Adam abruptly wonder where Chainsaw is, in this time. His eyes are knowing and sharp.

Adam stands with his own plate, and washes it off in the sink. It's only polite. “I don't love her. Or- I'm not in love with her.” He doesn't want to look at Ronan for this, for this discussion he hasn't had with anyone yet. “I never was.” He’d thought he was, for a few sunlit days. But it was always more about him than it had ever been about Blue. His own desire to love and be loved in return.

“You got her flowers,” Ronan delivers this like a scoring point. The fact that he apparently cares, ten years after the fact, makes Adam drop his plate into the sink and spin around.

“Hell, Lynch, I'm a teenager. I liked a girl, so yeah, I got her fucking flowers. Not a goddamn wedding ring. We dated. We broke up. I moved on. To say nothing of the fact that if Blue and Gansey think they are hiding their looks than they're both more stupid than I ever thought.”

Ronan steps forward in two long strides, pressing Adam against the counter. They are the same height, or near enough, but Adam has never felt smaller beside him. “You knew about Blue and Gansey?” Knew. Past tense. God.

Adam shoves him back, because he's never let Ronan bully him into submission and he sure as hell isn't starting now. “I'd have to be blind not to. Have you really not discussed this with future me?”

For the first time, Ronan looks uneasy. “It never came up.”

Never came up. Adam rolls his eyes so hard it actually hurts. It’s pretty obvious that Ronan and he live here together, in whatever state of domestic bliss that implies. And it’s never come up. Of course. “I'm not here to be your relationship counselor. How do I get back? There is something- it's important.”

“Gansey,” Ronan says knowingly. “And Glendower.” Then, thoughtfully. “And the third sleeper. She should be awake now, right?”

Adam goes rigid. “What.” It's not a question. Ronan goes tense all over, like a nervous horse. Adam studies him, and it's almost a relief to find that this Ronan is not as unreadable as he had first thought. “You don't mean Gwenllian. You mean the other one. The terrible one. The one that should never, ever be woken.”

Ronan tilts his jaw up, another achingly familiar gesture. Defensive. Posturing. He isn’t such a stranger afterall. “You're the genius.”

“Christ.” Adam runs fingers through his hair and sags against the counter. “Christ. I have to get back. I need to let them know. Ganey could-”

“I know.”

Adam can hardly look at him. “Does Gansey live? Do we make it through this?”

The snort Ronan makes causes anger to surge through him. This is serious, so serious. “You know I can't tell you that.”

“Do I?” Adam snaps. He turns around and scrubs furiously at the peanut butter left on his plate. “How would I know that? All my vast experience with time travel?”

Ronan comes up and gently takes the plate from him. “You're asking the wrong questions.”

“Fuck off,” Adam snaps.

Ronan ignores him, putting the plate in the dishwasher. Adam watches him do it. Then, “You can't put it in like that. The peanut butter will-”

“Magic dishwasher,” Ronan interrupts him.

Adam studies it in a new light. “Really?”

Ronan flashes him a grin. “No.”

Adam shoves him, hard. That too is familiar. He watches without comment as Ronan loads the rest of the dishes the dishwasher and tries to pretend that the sheer domesticity of it doesn't freak him out. He mostly fails.

When the dishwasher closes, Ronan puts his back to it and just looks at him. “When was the last time you ate?”

“This morning. Pancakes. Some weirdo with tattoos made them for me,” Adam quips. Ronan just fixes him with a hard look, made all the harder by the lines of what look like kindness etched into his face. Adam looks away first. “I'm not sure.”

“Jesus, Parrish,” Ronan snaps. “I'm amazed you even made it to this point.” Adam isn’t sure if he means to 18, or to the point where the other Adam is, living in a sunlit house with Ronan Lynch. Adam isn’t sure himself.

Ronan watches him, fiddling with something on his fingers, perhaps in liu of the absentee leather bands. Adam drops his gaze to it and his stomach drops when he sees Ronan is spinning a silver ring, working it back and forth on his left ring finger.

Ronan follows his gaze, and his gaze sharpens, his smirk widens. It's the face he makes when he's about to fuck with someone, and get a lot of pleasure out of the experience. He displays his hand, palm down. It is a disturbingly feminine gesture that is all for Adam's benefit. He thinks of his father and his jokes about faggots and how to be a man.

“You like it, Parrish?” he asks. “You picked it out.”

Adam can feel his heart in his stomach, in his ears, a rushing drop in his cheeks. He stands and reaches for Ronan's hand before he can think better of it. Ronan lets him, still and quiet. Adam tilts his hand this way and that, studying the ring. It's simple, elegant. A light engraving traces the edge, and he angles it towards the light. It's in latin, he can't make it out. He isn't sure he wants to. He doesn't want to know what sweet nothings his future self thought worth carving into a wedding ring.

Slowly, Ronan grips Adam's hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. It's a jarringly intimate motion, and Adam recoils, tugging free.

“I want to go back,” he says. “I don't want to be here.”

“Yeah, well, I don't really want you here,” Ronan snaps. He curls his left hand into a fist and let's it fall to his side. “But if memory serves, you have at least three days with me. Lucky us.”

“Memory? This has happened before?”

Ronan crosses his arms over his chest, and if he leans on the counter any harder, it might just fall in on itself. “Wrong question.” Adam wants to shout, wants to shake him until the answers fall out. Ronan throws his hands up, like he's just done with this whole mess. He’s not the only one. “That's how time travel works, Einstein. It's already happened, or is happening, or some new age bullshit like that. We're all connected and time is a circle and hakuna matata or some shit.”

“This isn't funny!”

Ronan meets his eyes, and the intensity in them almost takes his breath away. “No. It's not.”

Adam leans on the counter beside him, and he's unsettled enough that he let himself take comfort by pressing ever so slightly against Ronan. It's a game he plays, to himself. When he is tired, or hungry, or just needing something more than sleep or food or time. How much can he take, before Ronan will notice. How much comfort can he draw before it becomes obvious. How long before Ronan confronts him, and starts asking for more Adam can give. Ronan takes from dreams. Adam takes from Ronan.

Ronan, this Ronan, not his Ronan, gives him the slightest of looks out of the corner of his eye, but says nothing. He leans into Adam just a bit, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. Neither of them say anything, just stare straight ahead.

“If I'm here,” Adam says slowly. The way that Ronan had wandered from room to room, calling for someone he knew wasn't going to answer, is starting to trickle through his mind. “Does that mean that future me is there? Then? In the past, or whatever?”

Ronan smiles his shark smile, and there is nothing warm in it. “Now, Parrish, you are asking the right questions.”

 

* * *

 

Ronan wakes from a dream with fresh grass clenched in his fists, dirt under his fingernails, and the sense memory of lips on his neck, a warm weight pressing him down. He lets the grass fall to the ground the scrubs his hands over his face. Fuck.

He rolls over to look at his alarm clock, an absurdly luxurious contraption that would make Adam scowl just to look at it. Ronan uses it, exclusively, to tell the time, and mostly not even that. He isn’t entirely sure what the rest of the buttons even do.

It’s almost noon, later than he is usually able to sleep. Usually his own dreams, or Gansey, or Gansey’s weekend plans to find Glendower have woken him up before ten. Distantly, he can hear voices in the main area.

Reluctantly, he pulls himself out of bed. There is a discarded tank next to the bed, and he pulls it on before he staggers out. He doesn’t give a fuck who is talking with Gansey, there isn’t anyone in the world he would care about seeing him in his boxers.

To his surprise, Gansey is talking to someone Ronan doesn’t know. He had expected Blue, or maybe Adam, though Adam usually has work on Saturday mornings. The man reminds him of Adam a bit, something in the color of his hair, the way he tilts his head. But the posture is all wrong, and the breadth of his shoulders is too great. He is also wearing an eye-searingly blue polo shirt, the type Gansey favors.

Ronan leans on the doorway and watching him talk with Gansey. Gansey, who looks like he is having an actual religious experience. For a moment, Ronan actually wonders if this is Glendower. If, somehow, Glendower has woken himself up and, against all odds, come stumbling into their home. He hopes not. He likes to think that mythical undead kings have better fashion sense.

The man is gesturing as he talks, and it reminds Ronan again of Adam, the way every word is punctuated by motion. Too many things remind him of Adam, lately. He wipes his hands on his boxers, wiping off phantom traces of Cabeswater dirt from his dreams.

Gansey sees him first. “Ah, Ronan! Good. You should meet,” his eyes flick to the stranger. “Ah. Our guest.”

The man laughs softly and Ronan knows that laugh, he knows it. He’s half braced for it when the man turns and Ronan sees his face, but he can’t stop his knees from wavering anyway.

It’s Adam, but it’s not. It’s Adam, done wrong. For one terrible, awful moment, Ronan is afraid that he has pulled this fake-Adam from his dreams. An Adam made strong and confident, with his lips curving up more naturally and hair that has the clean cut of someone who can afford regular trims.

Then reality catches up, because at the very least he would not dream an Adam that wears Gansey’s clothing.

Adam, fake-Adam, wrong-Adam, gives him a self-conscious wave. “Hey.”

“Are you alright?” Gansey peers at him in concern and Ronan half-staggers over to the couch and sinks down onto it.

“What,” he says with feeling, “the fuck.”

Gansey’s expression clears, and he actually rubs his hands together in glee. “Well, Adam here- can I call you Adam?”

Wrong-Adam gives him a baffled look. “What else would you call me?”

“Right.” Gansey looks momentarily wrongfooted, and Ronan is selfishly glad that even Gansey is rattled by whatever the fuck is happening. “Adam is from the future!”

“2025,” Adam adds. He’s watching Ronan carefully, and Ronan feels a bit faint.

“What,” he doesn’t know what questions to ask. “How?”

Adam bites his lip and exchanges a look with Gansey. “I’m not sure, exactly. Cabeswater? Maybe? It might not even be something from your time. It might be something from mine.”

“But this is wonderful!” Gansey bursts out. “You can help us find Glendower!” Frankly, Ronan is amazed that this is apparently only just coming up. Adam has clearly been here for awhile.

Adam give Gansey a look of such open affection that Ronan feels his breath catch and hates himself for it. “Never change, Gansey.” He shakes his head ruefully. “And I’m really sorry, but I can’t. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and it would probably be really bad if I tell you anything about the future.”

“But the psychics tell the future all the time,” Gansey protests.

“It’s different,” Adam says slowly. “No, I know it sounds stupid, but it really is. The psychics, fuck, how do I put this. The psychics are from the same plain as you, the same time. They can look forward, but they see paths. Possibilities. It is their gifts that help them know which path is the most likely. Nothing,” and he puts so much emphasis on this that Ronan knows he means something specific, “is set in stone. But me, I am from the future. Those paths have already happened. To give you too much information- it could fuck everything up.”

“You’re worried about changing the future?”

Adam’s lips twitch. “Not really. The future is more resilient that bad sci-fi gives it credit for. No, I’m worried about changing you.” He glances over at Ronan. “Any of you. If you know too much, it could drive you insane. What if this isn’t the right choice? What if I missed the moment? How will we get back there there?” He shakes his head. “And I’d like to at least maintain the illusion of free will. You need to make your choices, and hope for the best. I won’t take that from you.”

“You’re awfully knowledgeable about this shit,” Ronan snaps, irritated by the high handed way this fake-Adam delivers information.

Adam grins at him. “I am, aren’t I?”

Ronan glowers at him. “Don’t you have anything fucking useful to offer?”

“Ronan!” Gansey snaps.

“It’s fine,” Adam laughs. “I’m used to it.”

Ronan bares his teeth at this stranger wearing his friends face, and Adam just winks at him. It’s so unexpected that Ronan flinches.

“I should call Blue,” Gansey says. “She’ll want to know.”

“Sounds good to me,” Adam replies amiably. “Ronan?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

Gansey pushes off the wall. “I’ll just go,” he jerks a thumb at the door, “call her then?”

There is no earthly reason that he should need to leave the room to call his midget girlfriend, and everything about the two of them is so obvious that Ronan can’t believe that Adam, his Adam, the real Adam, doesn’t know yet.

This Adam just grins. “I’ll be here.”

“Ronan?” Gansey asks. Ronan stares at him. What, does he want company on his phone call?

“Same,” he grunts.

And then Gansey is gone. Leaving Ronan with the pressing awareness of fake-Adam. Fake-Adam stares around Monmouth like he’s never seen anything like it.

“How do I know you’re real?” he asks. Adam flicks a glance over to him, then back to the pool table he is perched on.

“How do I know you’re real?” Adam replies. He absently lines the pool balls into their triangle, carefully putting them in numerical order. His Adam does the same.

“Of course I’m fucking real.” It comes out harsher than he intends, because sometimes he isn’t sure. Is there someone out there, who will take his mind with them when they die. Is he a dream or a person or something else entirely. A creature, Gansey had named him.

Fake-Adam’s eyes are suddenly hot on his face, and Ronan doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I know that,” Adam says softly.

“Well, I don’t.” It takes him less than a second to realize how that could sound. “About you. I don’t know if you’re real.”

Adam’s lips quirk up, and it’s disconcerting how easy that expression comes to him. He looks tired, but not beaten down. There is a light in his eyes that Ronan hasn’t seen on his Adam, and the stress lines around his mouth are gone. Somehow, even with the markers of age around his eyes and mouth, this Adam manages to look younger than the Adam he knows. More carefree.

“I’m not a dream, Ronan. Not yours, or anyone else’s.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan snaps. “I didn’t say you were.”

Adam lifts his hands, as if showing that he is unarmed. “Of course not.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re real. What if you’re a faker. You could be pretending to be Adam. Some kind of,” he gesutres vaguley, “magic shapeshifting Cabeswater monster.”

The way Adam’s eyebrow lifts sarcastically is new, but the message is clear. He thinks Ronan is being ridiculous, but is willing to indulge him. “Pretending to be Adam from the future? That seems a bit convoluted.”

“Maybe you knew that we would know if our Adam was an imposter.”

“Your Adam?” Adam asks with a grin. Ronan wants to smack it off his face. Or kiss it. Fuck.

“Fuck you,” Ronan snarls. “The Adam from this time. The real Adam.”

Fake-Adam taps his chin with his hand. The gesture is incredibly sarcastic, to the point that Ronan has to wonder where he learned to be this effortlessly communicative with his body. All his Adam knows how to do is look uncomfortable or painfully disdainful. “How can I prove it to you?”

“Tell me something only Adam would know.”

“Ah, but if I’m a dream, I would know what you would know.”

“You are not my dream.” The words feel torn out of him. It’s not a lie. This Adam has never been in his dreams. Not this confident, cocksure, teasing Adam. Not an Adam at almost 30, easy in himself and the terrible blue shirt.

“I’ll tell you one thing that only you and I know, and one thing that you don’t know but is true,” Adam suggests. “Will that help?”

“Don’t patronize me,” Ronan bites out.

Adam ignores him. “You gave me lotion. For my hands. I’m not sure how long ago it was, or when we are right now, but I’m pretty sure that has happened. I think you dreamed it, but I never asked.”

Ronan can feel himself going a bright, furious red. His Adam had never mentioned it either, and he had really prefered it stay that way for possibly the rest of his life. It had been an indulgence, and he shouldn’t have done it. He didn’t regret it. This Adam is from ten years in the future. That he would still remember that, after all that time. He can’t get his brain to wrap around the idea.

“What’s something I don’t know?”

Adam returns his gaze back to the pool table. “It would have to be something you could verify,” he says, almost to himself. After a moment, he laughs. “You know, I can’t think of anything that one of the others know that I haven’t told you as well. Told you first.” When he looks back up at Adam, his eyes are shockingly blue. It has to be the shirt- reflected light and other science shit. The expression on his face, that can’t be explained. Ronan has no words for it. It makes him edgy and nervous.

Ronan’s heart flips at, at the fond expression, at the words, and the sheer intimacy of the moment. He ignores it. “Tell me if you and Blue ever kissed.” He doesn’t look at Adam when he says it. That expression, whatever is means, is for him. He doesn’t want to see it applied to Blue’s memory.

He doesn’t know what makes him say it. He doesn’t want to know. He really doesn’t want to know. And yet. It must be that masochistic side that Gansey is always complaining about.

“You mean you don’t know?” Adam demands, and the tone in his voice makes Ronan jerk his gaze back to Adam’s face. He sounds urgent and shocked and it’s all disproportionate to their conversation about kissing.

“Know what?”

Adam only shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. God. Ah. No.”

“What?”

“No, Blue and I never kissed.”

Ronan scowls, even as he feels so, so relieved and hates himself for it. “What don’t I know?”

“It’s not my secret to tell.”

It’s Blue’s, is what he means. There are some hidden depths there after all. It’s an uncharitable thought, and he feels bad as soon as he thinks it. He likes Blue, even against his better judgement. What he doesn’t like is her dating Adam. He doesn’t like her running around on Adam with whatever her disaster with Gansey is. And he can’t hate Gansey, so he tries to hate Blue.

“I’m not dating her either,” Adam says carefully, watching his face. “I mean, like I said, I have no fucking clue where we are, timeline wise. But I woke up in at St. Agnes, so I can guarantee I’m not dating her.”

“That long?” Ronan frowns. Adam hadn’t mentioned a breakup. Ronan had been mentally crowing about all the times that Adam had spent with him instead of Blue, when it turns out he was just Adam’s rebound. His shitty, platonic rebound.

Adam shrugs. “Give or take a few weeks, yeah. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t… not know,” Ronan says slowly. It’s true. He must have known. It’s obvious now. He hadn’t wanted to think about it. Adam has a girlfriend was always an easier mantra than Adam will never want me.

“Blue is on her way over!” Gansey says, bursting back into the room. “What are we talking about?”

“Nothing,” Adam says blithely, at the same time that Ronan says

“Blue.”

Gansey’s politician smile falls for just a second before he pastes it back on. “Oh?”

Adam looks just uncomfortable as their Adam always does when confronted with other people’s emotions. “Nothing to worry about.”

Gansey’s face clearly says that he disagrees, but he doesn’t press, thank god. The last thing Ronan wants is to be caught up in some kind of Gansey-Blue-Adam triangle.

“Have you asked Cabeswater about what’s happened?’ Gansey asks instead. Adam spreads his hand wide. Ronan’s mouth twitches at how much like a magician he looks. See, nothing up my sleeves.

“No tarot cards. I did try scrying back at St. Agnes, but whatever did this has tapped out the power. I’ll have to go there at some point. But there is some chance,” he bites his lip. “Well. There are extenuating circumstances.”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Ronan repeats flatly. Adam looks at him, then away. He shrugs, uncomfortable.

“I can’t-”

“Tell us. Right. Is there anything you can do?”

Adam thinks it over like it’s a real question. “You still drive the BMW? I could give it a tune-up.”

“Parrish can already do that.”

Adam just smirks at him. “Can he? Yes. Will he? No. Because you won’t ask, because he won’t take your money, and you won’t take his time.”

Ronan looks away first. his hands clenching into fists. He feels exposed, here before this adult who wears his friend’s face. He wishes he had put pants on over his boxers afterall. It probably wouldn’t help. He always feels naked in front of Adam. “If you weren’t a stubborn fucker,” he mutters.

“He’d do it,” Adam says softly. “He’d be happy that you asked him.”

Ronan wants to leave. He wants to get into the BMW and race until he can’t even hear himself think. The moment stretches out between them.

Gansey clears his throat, the falls quiet. He clears his throat again, and Ronan finally looks at him. Adam rubs his arms like he’s cold and gives the air beside him a dirty look. Gansey is looking between them with raised eyebrows, and he gives Ronan a capital L Look when Ronan meets his eyes.

The sound of bike tires on gravel into their awkward silence heralds Blue’s arrival before her impatient knock. The way that Gansey’s head whips around is hilariously Pavlovian. Typically, Blue doesn’t wait for any of them to answer, just pushes the door open with her hip. Her hands are full with tupperware containers.

“Take these.” She slams them down on the table. “If my mom keeps making food, we won’t all be able to fit into the house. She’s been stress baking. You’ll have to roll me to school.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Gansey says immediately. Ronan, looking at her towering pile of tupperware, isn’t so sure.

“What’s so urgent?” Blue handles Ganey’s remarks in her usual way of totally ignoring them. “I was in the middle of something.”

From the looks of her, that something was ‘getting caught in the middle of a tornado,’ but Ronan keeps his mouth shut.

“We have a visitor, Jane.” Gansey gestures at Adam with a little flourish. For his part, Adam just lets his feet dangle off the floor, watching the two of them interact with a small smile.

“Is it another scientist friend, because,” she trails off as she takes in Adam. He just grins under her astonishment, and Ronan is amazed all over again at how naturally the expression comes to him now. “Adam.”

“Hey.”

Blue turns to Gansey. “What did you do?”

Gansey puts his hands up immediately. “Nothing! This was entirely not my fault.”

“Not him,” Adam interrupts. “It has something to do with Cabeswater and the third sleeper.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know anything,” Ronan says suspiciously.

“And I don’t. But I have some theories.”

Ronan grits his teeth. “Then why didn’t you share them with us before?”

“I wanted to wait for everyone. And now Noah can participate. He’s been poking me for the last ten minutes.”

Noah fades into a more corporeal form with a sheepish look. “I didn’t think you’d be able to feel it.”

“I could.”

Noah shrugs, totally unrepentant. “Sorry.” He hops lightly onto the pool table next to Adam and crosses his legs under him.

“Where is Adam? The real Adam, I mean.” Blue asks suddenly.

Ronan goes tense all over. He hadn’t even- the thought hadn’t even- He’s on his feet before he can think it through. “What did you do to him?”

Adam gives him another look that Ronan can’t read. It’s not quite amusement, but there is some sort of satisfaction in it. He is pleased. “He’s fine. He’s, ah, he’s in the future. At my house. It was a switch.”

The clamor is instantaneous. Blue and Gansey start talking at once, their words blurring together into incomprehensibility. Ronan just strides forward with two large steps and puts his fists down on either side of future Adam. “If he is in any danger,” he says menacingly.

“He’s fine,” Adam says. “Or don’t you trust yourself?” The words take a moment to sink in, and Ronan jerks back when they do. This close, he can see a hickey worked into Adam’s skin, dark and vivid.

“What?” he asks, and it comes out as a choked whisper. Blue and Gansey have both fallen quiet. They can’t have heard what Adam said, but they’re listening now.

Adam just raises an eyebrow at him. “You heard me.”

“Is he ok?” Blue demands, cutting through Ronan’s own attempts to muster words past the sudden lump in his throat.

“How would he know?” Gansey asks. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

Blue gives him a withering look. “Time isn’t a straight line. If this Adam is here, and our Adam is there, that means that at some point, this Adam was our Adam, and was there.” She hesitates for a moment. “Right?”

The expression on Adam’s is scarily reminiscent of a teacher with a bright student. “Yes. Ish. All this has already happened. For a little over three days in 2015, I was stuck in my own future. It was,” he makes a face, “a learning experience.”

“So all the bullshit you’ve been giving us about not knowing our own future has been just that.” Ronan snaps. “A lot of hypocritical shit to keep us busy while you get a free peek at your future?”

“I didn’t think it would happen again!” Adam bursts out. “I thought I had fixed the disturbance, whatever it was that pulled us out of sync the first time.” For a moment, he looks more like the Adam Ronan knows, tired and worn down. “I thought I had done things differently.”

For a moment, they all watch him, weary and drawn against the pool table.

“You were expecting this?” Noah asks. He sounds kind. Ronan isn’t sure he has any kindness in him at the moment.

Adam hesitates. “Sort of? I wasn’t sure if it would happen the same way, or the exact date. But yeah. Ro- You guys will kill me when I get back, for not warning you.”

Blue gives him a considering look, but it’s Gansey who asks, heart in his voice. “We’re all together then? We’re still friends?”

Sometimes, even Ronan forgets how insecure Gansey can be. All of them would die for him, would follow him into the darkest cave in Cabeswater, into the underworld itself, Greek-myth style. It makes it hard to remember that Gansey has never seen it like that.

Adam runs a hand through his hair, ruffling the perfect cut of it. “He’ll just tell you when he gets back,” he says, almost to himself. To Ronan’s surprise, it’s Blue that Adam looks at first. “I can’t give you any details. That would be bad. Probably. But yeah.”

Blue’s knees give out. She drops to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, and even Ronan stands to go to her side. Gansey is there first, helping her up by putting her arm around his shoulder. He has to stay bent over just to keep her on her feet. Ronan feels some satisfaction in getting some kind of reaction out of this stupid overly confident version of Adam, the look of concern on his face a reminder that this is still his friend.

“I’m fine,” Blue shoves herself off Gansey, but her voice sounds weak. Then she almost lunges at Adam, who catches her easily. She looks ever more tiny than usual next to him. “Thank you,” she says into his chest. “Thank you, thank you.”

Carefully, Adam pushes her back so that he can look at her face. “It’s not easy, Blue. It’s something you have to fight for. Do you understand me? You never stop fighting. It’s not set in stone, just because I say it is.”

She gives him a watery smile. “When have I ever stopped fighting.”

Adam grins and ruffles her hair. “That’s my girl.”

“Get off.” She fixes her hair, even though there is no visible difference between messy and fixed. “I’m no one’s girl.”

“Would you believe me if I told you you’re married?”

“I am not!” Blue shouts.

To Ronan, Noah mutters, “So much for not telling us anything.”

“Maybe Blue is special,” Ronan mutters back, as though he doesn’t care. Privately, he thinks that Adam’s secret desire to be a little shit is just winning out over his common sense.

“I’m never getting married,” Blue protests. “It’s an archaic institution designed to brand women as property and limit their personal freedom.”

“Uh-huh,” Adam replies agreeably. “If you say so.”

“Don’t you condescend to me, you son of a-” her gaze catches on Adam’s hand and she stops. “Oh God.” She grabs his hand, and Ronan, feigning disinterest, feels his stomach drop. There is a wedding band on Adam’s finger.

“Oh, Lord,” Gansey mutters.

“Please, please tell me that we didn’t get married.” The amount of horror in her voice is a little offensive, Ronan thinks. “I really need to know that I do not marry you in the future.”

“Well,” Adam says slowly, and Blue goes pale. Beside her, Gansey makes a choked off noise. Noah ducks his head to hide a grin, even though Ronan can’t see anything funny about this. “There was this weekend in Vegas that I still can’t remember, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Blue punches Adam hard enough that he rocks back, and he laughs. “No, Blue. I did not marry you in the future.”

“But you married someone,” Ronan blurts out.

Adam gives him a slow, considering look. “Problem, Lynch?”

“Fuck no,” Ronan snaps. “You can chain yourself to whatever poor woman you want. I can’t imagine what kind of girl would want to put up with you for a lifetime.”

Adam raises his eyebrow again, and Ronan hates whoever teaches him that in the future. “I never said it was a girl.”

Blue lets out a victory crowe, Noah makes a choked sounding laugh and Gansey says “Adam!” like he does when Adam and Ronan are about to start another fight. Ronan just feels dizzy and flushed. Adam has to be fucking with him. Adam’s inner little shit at work again. Adam is straight. He is certain that Adam is straight.

“That explains your shirt,” Blue quips.

“Hey!” Gansey protests. “That is my shirt!”

“Oh, really?” Noah says archly, then dissolves into giggles at the face that Blue and Gansey make at almost the same time.

“Not like that!” Gansey says, flushing and looking at Blue entreatingly.

“Why not, Dick?” Adam rolls Gansey’s name in his mouth for a long moment, all long vowels and hard consonants, and Ronan watches in fascination as Gansey goes red to the very tips of his ears. “I’m hurt, frankly.”

Gansey’s mouth works, opening and closing. Then he rolls his eyes and says, at his very primest, “I am sorry, Adam, but you just aren’t my type. It’s nothing personal, but I hope that we can still be friends.” He almost ruins the effect by cracking a grin halfway through. Adam just laughs and laughs, holding his stomach like he can’t stop himself.

“None of my old clothes fit me,” Adam explains, through gasps of air. Ronan gives Adam a speculative look. The way Adam is lying makes his borrowed shirt ride up, exposing a line of skin and a well-muscled torso. His shoulders are obviously more broad than the Adam Ronan knows, and his clothes barely fit him now. He regrets sleeping in as late as he did, if it means missing Adam in a shirt several sizes too small.

“You didn’t come in your own clothes?” Blue asks curiously. “Is it like the Terminator? No inorganic material?”

“No,” Adam says, still laughing. “It’s more of a, ‘I was sleeping peacefully in my own bed and not expecting to be interrupted’ thing.”

Oh god. Ronan’s mind makes an effort to picture that, then fizzles out.

Blue gives Adam an obvious once over then flushes. “Oh,” she says.

“Wait,” Noah says. “I thought you said that our Adam switched places with you? Does that mean that he-”

“Will wake up with unexpected company?” Adam asks. “Yes. I doubt he or my husband will be very pleased about it.”

Husband. His husband. God.

“You ok over there, Ronan?” Noah asks. Ronan gives Noah his dirtiest look, and Noah only gives his Casper the friendly ghost smile in return.

“Fine,” he grits out, because now everyone is looking at him. “Like I give two fucks who Parrish wants to bang in the future.”

Adam snorts, and the look on his face is saying that whatever comes out his mouth will be sarcastic and probably make Ronan want to hit him.

Gansey, observant in the way that he is when a fight is about to break out between his friends, jumps in.

“I didn’t know that you were a fan of Schwarzenegger films, Jane.” He says it with all the casual swagger of someone who had only seen any of the Terminator movies two months ago..

Blue gives him a look that is all mischief. “Oh, I’m a fan of any film with naked men it.”

Gansey splutters and Noah almost howls with laughter, grabbing at Adam’s shoulder to stay upright. Adam doesn’t provide much support, rocking with his own laughter.

Ronan chuckles himself, but he can’t take his eyes off of Adam, carefree and wild and confident.

 

* * *

 

Adam opens the cabinet doors then closes them pointedly. Ronan doesn’t react. Adam opens them again and lets them close louder. He pairs it with a loud sigh. Ronan ignores him. He can see Ronan clearly from the kitchen, which means that Ronan can definetly hear him.

Ronan is stretched out on the couch in a room across the hall, and the unlikely sight of Ronan reading a book with what are clearly reading glasses perched on his nose is enough to make Adam with he had a camera. Maybe he should have let Gansey buy him a phone, just to capture this moment.

Through the window, he sees leaves flutter, and he is done being charmed by Ronan’s domestic future self.

He strides over to where Ronan is sitting and grabs the book out of his hands. “Are you going to let me out of this house?”

Ronan gives him a measured look over the top of his glasses, and god, Adam can not believe this is rea.. “I forgot what a little shit you were at 18.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s a lie,” Ronan grins. “I didn’t forget. You’re still a shit.” He holds his hand. “I was reading that.”

Adam looks at the cover in his hands. “It’s about health standards in modern animal shelters.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re, what, reading this for fun?”

Ronan gives him a dirty look and grabs his glasses off of his face, putting them on the coffee table. Presumably, this is to give his glare more effect. “I’m reading this so that my animal shelters will by up to code and I won’t get shut down.”

For one shocked moment, Adam can only stare at him. “Your?”

“The pound, Parrish. That I run. Keep up.”

He’s embarrassed, Adam realized. It’s like seeing him with Chainsaw, or with a baby mouse pressed to his cheek. This is a soft point, and Adam has his hands pressed directly to it. He doesn’t truly think that he can hurt this older, stronger Ronan, but he doesn’t want to try.

“Right. Your pet shelter,” he hesitates. “Thank god. The one in Henrietta is a disaster.”

There is something distinctly satisfied in Ronan’s smile. “It used to be.”

It’s a revelation. Ronan, like this. It’s been a long time since Adam was truly fooled by Ronan’s bark, not when he bites so rarely, but this is different. This is Ronan with his edges sanded down. Not removed, but polished to a touchable softness. This is Ronan happy.

He wants more.

Adam lets himself sink down next to Ronan. “How long have you owned a the shelter?”

“Spoilers,” Ronan says, reaching for the book again.

“What did you mean when you said it was my first day off in months? What do I do?”

“You’re a stripper.”

“What?”

Ronan uses his distraction to grab the book back. “A stripper. You take off clothes for money. Surely even you have heard of them, Parrish.”

“I have- what do you mean, even me?”

Ronan gives him another once over, a head to toe look that leaves Adam feeling flushed and dizzy. The look says it all.

“I am not a stripper!”

“You’re a supernatural themed stripper.”

Adam can’t help but laugh. “Supernatural?”

“Mermaids, vampires, fauns. Chicks love that shit. You were a werewolf once. Ripped your fursuit right off on stage.”

Adam can’t stop laughing. “Dracula vampire or Twilight vampire?”

“Parrish, you should be ashamed you even know enough to ask that question.”

Sitting here like this, he feels daring. Ronan is so close, and this Ronan isn’t something to be afraid of. This Ronan already belongs to an Adam Parrish, even if it isn’t him. He’ll go back and he’ll lose this anyway and it won’t be because he fucked up, so there is nothing to fear.

He turns to face Ronan, and at this distance Ronan is all blue eyes and dark curls and a soft, full mouth. “What is your favorite?” he asks, and his voice comes out soft.

Ronan, still laughing, turns to face him. When their eyes meet, the moment stretches. Ronan stops laughing. “My favorite what?”

“Stripper costume. Obviously.”

Ronan pretends to think about it, but it doesn’t do anything to take away the tension of the moment. He wonders if Ronan is thinking about it now, of Adam shirtless in shorts, or whatever the hell strippers wear. He flushes.

“The fairy,” Ronan says finally. “Obviously.”

It feels almost like a disappointment. He lets himself fall back against the back of the couch. Obviously. Just another joke. What else would it be? Obviously.

“Do you like working at the shelter?” he asks softly.

Ronan follows his lead, and Adam is starting to think that he always will. “I love it. It’s good to do something with all this fucking money.”

“Careful,” Adam says, “You’re starting to sound like Gansey.” He watches Ronan carefully, for a strike of grief or loss or anger. There is nothing, but he doesn’t know what that means.

“I don’t hate having money,” Ronan protests. “I just want to use it. Not sit around in some fancy house all day.”

Adam looks around at the brightly lit room, what can only be called a foyer. It’s not a living room, because he past that on the second floor. It’s near the front door, and across from the kitchen. Maybe it’s a sitting room. Either way, it is not the kind of room he has ever had occasion to sit in before.

“Yeah, you’re really living in squalor.”

Ronan snorts. “Hey, this place is half yours. Split the price down the middle, just like your stubborn ass insisted.”

Adam looks around with fresh eyes. “No fucking way.”

Ronan actually laughs at that. “Way.” Then, mimicking the way that Gansey says it, like it is a foreign tongue he hasn’t mastered yet, he adds. “Dude.”

“Stripping is more lucrative than I thought.”

“The vampire costume is a big hit.”

Adam laughs and lets himself sink further into the couch. His shoulder is pressed up against Ronan’s, and he wonders if his future self ever sits here with Ronan, laughing like this. If Ronan ever puts his arm around Adam’s shoulders while he reads. He leans in just a little. One more thing to take. Stolen moments that he hasn’t actually earned.

Suddenly, it’s not as funny. This life isn’t his to take.

He pushes himself back, to the opposite side of the couch. “What can you tell me about what is happening in my time.”

Ronan lets out an exasperated breath like he wants to say, this again. “It was ten years ago. You might not know this, being an infant yourself, but ten years is a long time.”

“Hey!”

Ronan shrugs, totally unconcerned. “I call it like I see it. Can you even vote?”

“I know you know what the voting age is, asshole.”

“Nope. America abolished the democratic system in 2020. Now the president is decided by the outcome of a Brazilian mud wrestling contest.”

“How unAmerican.”

“It caused some controversy, but you should have seen Hillary going at it. Woman has some elbows on her.”

Adam nods knowingly. “She seems pretty scrappy.”

“She’s not the only one,” Ronann says. Adam flinches back, unnerved by the softness of Ronan’s voice, the way his eyes trace over Adam’s face.

“Fuck off,” he mutters, staring at their mantle. A mantle, jesus. For a fireplace. He can see Ronan grin out of the corner of his eye.

“Yep. Still an infant.”

Adam stands. “Will you cut it out? I just want to find out what is going on and get back home. Things are bad back there. Worse than we know, if you’re right about the third sleeper. I can’t be here playing house in your gay dream barbie fantasy life. They need me.” It’s a step too far. He knows that as soon as the word’s leave his mouth.

How does he always do this? Always ruin things that are good? The room had been filled with laughter, until Adam had opened his mouth.

“Do they?” Ronan asks. It’s so matterafact that Adam goes cold. He can only stare at Ronan, shocked and hurt. What he forgets, sometimes, is that Ronan doesn’t bite much, but when he does it is so much worse than his bark.

“I,” he wants to say yes, of course. He is the magician. But that was power he stole against Gansey’s wishes. It’s a tether, not an asset. They have Ronan to control Cabeswater and Blue to explain the mystical world and Gansey to lead them and Noah to guide them. What does Adam offer, in all of that?

“Oh, Adam,” Ronan must see something in his face, because he reaches for him, and Adam shoves him away.

“Fuck you very much, Ronan Lynch.”

The door to the house is right in front of him, so he walks through it. Ronan doesn’t try to stop him. Adam isn’t sure he wouldn’t hit him if he tried.

After a few steps, he sees why. Their house is in the middle of fucking nowhere. It looks like the Barns, surrounded by trees and grass and long driveways. He heads down the driveway and keeps walking and walking and walking. He’s still wearing his boxers and a tshirt and he doesn’t give a shit.

The driveway is hot under his barefeet, and he doesn’t care about that either. Pain makes things real, makes them true.

He’s pretty sure this is still Virginia, the trees that line the vast property are the ones he’s known all his life. He can feel the leyline around him, thrumming and powerful. He can’t have gone far. It’s his worst nightmare. He’s traded one cage for another, trapped in Virginia as Ronan Lynch’s trophy husband.

The trees whisper to him, and it takes him a long time to realize that it’s not metaphorical. The trees are calling to him, humming in his deaf ear.

The grass is a soft, cool contrast to the driveway, and the trees sound louder as soon as his feet touch down.

He isn’t as good at Latin as Ronan is, but he understands his name. He understands Magician. He understands home.

It isn’t Cabeswater, not quite, but it’s something like it. It calls to him, deep and inexplicable. It’s a feeling he’s learned to trust, in the last few months.

Without looking back towards the house, Adam heads towards the trees.


	2. Chapter 2

Hiding out in his room is probably one of those petty, childish behaviors that Gansey is slowly and steadily trying to beat out of him, but Ronan doesn’t care. He had done his requisite socializing for the day, and retreated as soon as the opportunity presented itself. To the best of his knowledge, Adam is still holding court downstairs, entertaining Gansey, Noah and Blue with his non-answers and cryptic remarks. Well, Blue was probably used to cryptic remarks, but Ronan couldn’t stand them.

He tucks his hands behind his head and stares up at the ceiling. He hopes that Parrish is ok. He isn’t sure how he feels about him being stuck in the future with some mysterious, probably creepy husband. What if whoever it was didn’t know about magic? How would they react to an 18-year old waking up in their bed?

A flash of a way that could go down appears in his brain, the searing image of skin and hands and Adam’s freckles appearing before his eyes. Ronan shuts them tightly, trying to make image go away.

He wonders what kind of person Adam would marry. He can’t imagine Adam married. Not Adam, with his steadfast determination to belong to no one to himself. What kind of person convince him otherwise?

Ronan pictures someone like Gansey, confident and charming, with windswept hair and tan skin. He had never thought that Adam could ever like guys, so it had never crossed his mind what kind of guys Adam could like.

He liked Blue, that was for sure. Bisexual, that was a thing people called themselves. He wondered if Adam was bisexual. His Adam had certainly mentioned it. But then, Ronan hadn’t mentioned his own inclinations either.

Blue was a type all on her own. Would Adam like boys the same as he liked girls? Tiny and angry and dark haired? For a moment, the image of a male version of Blue, someone a lot like Artemus only shorter, flashes into his mind, Adam’s arm around their shoulder. In his mental image, Adam has to stoop over to reach. He snorts. It seemed unlikely.

He can’t stop thinking about that initial image. What if they hadn’t realized that a swap had occurred at first? What if they had rolled over, and, in an early morning haze, pressed a kiss to Adam’s mouth.

Adam would be shocked, of course, but would he go with it? Adam had never kissed Blue. Had he kissed anyone? Would this nameless, future husband take Adam’s first kiss? The husband would probably be naked, just as future Adam had implied he had been.

Would he press down onto Adam, rolling his morning wood into Adam’s hip? Would Adam like it? Would he be hard himself, hardly woken up by his own journey through time? Roan can’t stop thinking about it. How long would it take the Husband to realize that something was wrong? How far would Adam let it go?

His mind is on overdrive, and he can’t tear his mind away. Would Adam be aroused? Too much to push this person away? He doubts it, doubts there is any version of Adam, anywhere in the timestream, that would just let something happen to it.

But still, his mind pictures it. Adam, on his back, flushed and squirming. A foreign hand, slipping under the large t-shirt Adam always wore to sleep. Ronan had seen Adam first thing in the morning, rumpled and confused. He might think it was still a dream. He might press up into a comforting touch, into a warm mouth.

Somehow, the future husband has started to look a lot like Ronan. His own pale fingers splayed across Adam’s hips, his own mouth on Adam’s. Adam tilting his head back to gasp, to moan. Maybe the husband would take some time to notice. Adam wasn’t so different in the future, it would be hard to tell, in a sleep haze or the fog of arousal.

Maybe he would press kisses down the delicate column of Adam’s throat, letting Adam have the space to suck in air, to make low noises into the early morning.

Ronan is gasping for breath himself, hard in his boxers and clenching his fingers into the sheets. He can’t stop thinking about it, and he feels sick. He shouldn’t think about this. He shouldn’t think about Adam at all, but especially not like this- caught up in pleasure he didn’t consent, in a way that he would hate when he knew what was happening.

He pictures the look of pleasure on Adam’s face, the way he would bite his lip, the way that his cheeks would flush. Then he imagines how Adam’s face would twist in anger once he realized what had happened, the shame at having a stranger touch him. Ronan feels sick, at himself and at the future husband. Who would do that? How could anyone who professed to love Adam do that to him?

Unbidden, he hears future Adam’s words, “Don’t you trust yourself?” and Ronan sits bolt upright in his bed. All hazy pleasure is gone, replaced by a lead weight in his stomach, a roaring in his ears. Ronan had asked if Adam was safe, and Adam had replied ‘Don’t you trust yourself?’

At the time, Ronan had thought it was a meaningless jab, an insinuation that Ronan was not to be trusted, with his anger and his sharp edges.

‘Don’t you trust yourself?’ Because Adam, his Adam, was with Ronan in the future. He was in a situation where his safety was contingent on Ronan’s actions. Future Adam had been in bed with his husband, so Adam would have woken up in the same place. With his husband. With Ronan.

He can barely wrap his mind around it.

Ronan is out the door of his bedroom before he can think better of it. Chainsaw makes an angry noises as his door slams against the wall, but Ronan doesn’t care. The stairs shake as he thunders down them.

“I think I hear an elephant stampede approaching,” he hears Blue say, just before he rounds the corner to see them all arranged in the main area.

Gansey is sitting a little too close to Blue on the couch for plausible deniability. Adam is still on the pool table, leaning back on his hands. Noah has moved to the floor, legs crossed under him. It makes him look like a kid waiting for story time.

“We’re fucking married,” Ronan gasps out, pointing at Adam.

Adam raises his eyebrow again and Ronan hates that expression, he hates it. “Ronan, this is all so sudden.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ronan strides forward and pokes Adam hard in the chest. “In the future. You’re married to me, aren’t you? i’m your fucking husband.”

Blue makes a muted noise deep in her throat that sounds a bit like she was strangling a sparrow. Adam just watches him. It’s the same expression that Ronan has seen in his dreams, the impassivity. The cold disdain. It never fails to make Ronan feel about three inches tall and want to never speak again.

Then, unexpected and bright as the sunshine, Adam grins. “Yes, Ronan Lynch. You are my fucking husband. I thought you might figure it out.”

Ronan scowls. “Like you weren’t dropping hints like crazy, trying to fuck with me.”

Adam frowns at him. “I wasn’t trying to fuck with you. Well, not about that. I just- I know that I shouldn’t tell you, but I don’t like keeping it a secret. It’s not something I’m ashamed of, and I don’t like having to hide it.” He meets Ronan’s eyes, and it’s like staring into the sun. “I have never been ashamed of it.”

“Whatever,” Ronan drops his gaze. “Keep whatever secrets you want, I don’t give a fuck.” Lie.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.” Adam sounds resigned. “Adam is just going to tell you when he gets back. I know I did.”

“It’s really freaky that you keep calling him that,” Noah says, as though he has any right to comment on creepy behavior.

Ronan still feels lightheaded. He had thought- but he hadn’t expected to be right.

“You mean it’s true?” Ganey exclaims, and suddenly, Ronan feels lightheaded for an entirely different reason. He hadn’t even thought about Gansey. He turns slowly, and leans back against the pool table. His hands dig into the wooden rim. He feels a light touch on the outside of his pinky. When he glances down, he can see that Adam has put his hand down right next to Ronan’s. It could be an accident, but their pinkies are flush together. Adam’s hands are cool, just like they always have been.

“Yes,” Adam says, and at least he has the courage to meet Gansey’s eyes directly. Ronan can hardly stand to look at him. He does anyway. Gansey is his best friend, he deserves at least that much. And Ronan knows better than to think Gansey will throw him out over this. But what he knows and what he feels are different things. “Ronan and I are married in the future. He dreamed me up this ring,” he holds his hand out, palm facing himself, “after I proposed to him.” Then he winces. “Pretend I didn’t say that last bit. I hate time travel.”

Blue has her fist pressed to her mouth, but it’s not enough to hide her broad grin. Ronan doesn’t look away from Gansey. Gansey, who is opening and closing his mouth like a fish. “But, but,” he says. Ronan tenses. “But, neither of you are gay!”

“Ah,” Ronan says. Adam shifts, so that his pinky finger curls over Ronan’s, and Ronan draws strength from that. “Technically speaking,” he trails off.

“No,” Gansey says. Ronan knows him well enough now to know that it’s not a denial, but an expression of disbelief. Blue, still new to the many Ganseyisms, elbows him sharply in the stomach. He oofs, loudly. “Not that I would care!” he adds, in a slightly higher voice. “But I thought you would have told me.” His looks is pure Gansey disappointment. The one that makes him look like a mother on a sitcom, guilting her kids into confessions. It works.

“I was going to,” Ronan scuffs his foot on the ground, but doesn’t look away. “It hasn’t come up.”

“Hasn’t come up,” Gansey says slowly. “Right.” Sitcom moms wish they could pull of that level of a guilt tripping. He turns the expression over to Adam.

Adam just laughs. “Don’t look at me. I’m not gay.”

It’s like getting a bucket of ice water poured over his head. Ronan yanks his hand away from Adam and doesn’t look at him, even though he can see Adam’s head turn in his peripheral vision.

Gansey just opens and closes his mouth again. “But, you married a man!”

Noah snorts loudly into his collar, then turns it into a badly disguised cough when Ronan glares at him.

“And I dated Blue,” Adam points out. Blue winks at him, which Ronan thinks is entirely uncalled for.

Gansey leans back into the couch. “I don’t understand. Why would you marry Ronan if you’re not gay?”

“Oh my god, Gansey, bisxuality is a thing,” Blue snaps. “It may have passed you by in your sheltered ivory tower, but people can like more than one gender.”

“Well, I prefer pansexual, but yes.” Adam seems amused, which is fucking fantastic for him, because Ronan still feels like his heart going to beat out of his goddamn chest.

Gansey opens his mouth, and Blue slaps her hand over it. “I swear to God, Gansey, if the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with kitchenware, I will never speak to you again.” Gansey must lick her palm, because she pulls away suddenly with a yelp.

“I wasn’t,” Gansey says, but there is something in his eyes that suggests it probably would have come up later. “I only wanted to say,” he turns to Adam and Ronan, suddenly all presidentially serious. “Congratulations. I wish you all the best in your matrimony and future happiness.”

Ronan can’t help but laugh, and it feels like all the tension drains out of him. “Fuck, Gansey, we’re not getting married now. Not for like, ten years.” He flicks his eyes to Adam for confirmation, but Adam doesn’t look at him. He’s spinning his ring absently on his finger. The sight of it makes Ronan’s stomach lurch.

“Since we’re all coming out of the closet,” Blue says. “I should probably mention that I’m bi too. I don’t any threesomes, blah, blah, blah, please keep all gross commentary to yourself, thank you.”

“Who would want a threesome with you?” Ronan asks, and Adam chuckles.

Gansey is opening and closing his mouth again, but Ronan suspects that this is more about Blue saying the word threesome aloud than with any revelation of sexuality.

Finally, Gansey chokes out, “Noah?”

“Don’t look at me,” Noah says. “I think sex is gross.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Kissing is nice though.”

How is it that, of all of them, the dead guy is the one with kissing experience, Ronan wonders. That seems supremely unfair. Well, maybe Blue does too. Maybe she has dated tons of guys before Adam. Clearly her taste is pretty bad, since she didn’t want to keep dating Adam. He can’t imagine not wanting to date Adam.

Blue elbows Gansey again. “Oh!” he blurts. “I haven’t actually thought about it. I definitely like girls.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Do you suppose that it’s something I should test?”

Blue puts her head in her hands. “Please stop talking.”

“A hypothesis can not be considered a fact unless it has undergone a thorough testing process,” Gansey says. “I know I like girls, but it is theoretically possible that I haven’t found a man that I am attracted to yet. I could fall somewhere else on the Kinsey scale and not be aware of it.”

He gives Ronan a speculative look. “I don’t suppose-”

“No!” Ronan shoves himself back. “No, God no.”

Gansey frowns. “Ronan, this could be necessary part of my social growth.”

Blue groans from between her fingers. Noah makes noises like he is about to choke, and Ronan would be concerned if Noah wasn’t already dead. Ronan just shakes his head and keeps shaking it.

“No way, man, not gonna happen.”

“You’re not his type,” Noah gasps out, and collapses into giggles.

Gansey turns to Adam, who forestalls any questions by raising his hands. “I’m a married man,” he says, and he can only barely keep his face straight as he says it.

Gansey turns to Noah. “Noah, I need you to kiss me in the name of science.”

It’s too much apparently too much for Adam. He turns his head into Ronan’s shoulder and laughs so hard he almost cries.

“Maybe you should ask Glendower,” Blue says, taking her face from her hands. Her face is alight with amusement.

“Jane,” Gansey says reproachfully. “I cannot ask a mythical undead king of prophecy to be a subject of my sexual experimentation. It would be highly improper.”

Against Ronan’s shoulder, Adam makes a low, choked noise, and Ronan tries very hard not to let his own amusement dislodge Adam.

“Sexual experimentation,” Blue repeats, shaking with laughter, “God, Gansey.”

Gansey looks at all of them, in various states of amusement, and huffs. “I am trying to expand my sexual horizons here. I would appreciate your support in my time of need.” His mouth twitches upwards.

“You know we support you,” Adam says, all sincerity and wide eyes. Blue catches on a split second later.

She reaches out to put her hand on Gansey’s knee, which jumps comically at her touch. “I think that it’s really great you want to get in touch with your sexuality. Noah, don’t you think that we should help Gansey get in touch with his sexuality?”

Ronan clenches his fist in front of his mouth to hold in a smile. Gansey’s eyes are wide.

It takes Noah a few tries to control his voice before he says, “You’re right, Blue. It’s our civic duty.”

“Civic duty?” Gansey repeats, his voice going up an octave. Blue squeezes his leg. “Yes, right. of course. I would be remiss if I wasn’t willing to test my own limitations.”

“Your sexual limitations,” Ronan adds, because he can be kind of a dick. Gansey’s ears are going red. It’s amazing.

Noah straddles Gansey on the couch, one knee on either side of Gansey’s hips. In spite of himself, even knowing that Noah is messing around, Ronan feels his stomach swoop uncomfortably. He has always been aware that his friends are attractive, in a distant way, but it is so rarely called to his attention.

Slowly, Noah leans down. Blue still has her hand on Gansey’s knee, and Gansey grabs it with his own even as he tilts his face up. They all seem to be holding their breath.

In the split second before his lips touch Gansey’s, Noah opens his mouth.

“Squash one, squash two, squash-”

Gansey shrieks and shoves Noah off of his lap. Ronan falls back onto the pool table and howls, clutching at his sides, Adam right beside him, laugh echoing in his ear.

“That song,” Adam chokes out, “I forgot about that fucking song.”

Blue is shaking on the couch, laughing silently.

“I hate all of you,” Gansey says, with dignity.

 

* * *

 

It’s Blue’s idea to go to 300 Fox Way after they all calmed down, so they all pile into the Pig. Ronan is shoved out of shotgun by Blue and her sharp elbows, and ends up pressed into the back. Noah is, theoretically, squeezed between him and Adam, but in practice their arms are just goosebumped and cold as they press together.

Ronan ignores it. This isn’t his Adam, not the one he knows and is comfortable around. He doesn’t like this Adam. Then Adam’s knee jostles his, or Adam gives him a wry look out of the corner of his eye and Ronan feels his heart trip all over again.

He pulls his knees and elbows in tight so that he has the least amount of contact with Adam possible. He’s pretty sure he can hear Noah as a disembodied chuckle next to his ear and scowls aimlessly at where he thinks Noah is.

When the go over a bump, Adam hits the roof of the car with a curse. Their Adam would have remembered how that seatbelt goes loose if you don’t jostle it just right. Ronan hadn’t reminded him. “I forgot how much I-” Adam breaks off at a look from Gansey in the rearview mirror, “absolutely love and miss this car,” Adam finishes unconvincingly.

Gansey whips his head around. “Something happens to the Pig?”

Someone in front of them lays on the horn and Gansey jerks the wheel to get it back into their lane. Blue clutches at the handle above the door, and Ronan whoops.

“Gansey, it’s been 10 years. Even you can’t think the Pig will,” he trails off at the look on Gansey’s face. “You know what. It doesn’t matter.”

“He gets an even worse car, doesn’t he?” Ronan leans over to whisper in Adam’s ear. The pained look that Adam gives him is answer enough.

Ronan snorts. “I could literally make him the perfect car,” he says. “It wouldn’t even need gas.”

Adam closes his eye like he is in pain. “Trust me. He knows.”

Ronan wonders if Adam means to give so much away. He doubts it. But now, he can already guess that this is something that they’ve all discussed. That there have been meetings and arguments where he and Adam try to get Gansey something that runs on more than Gansey’s irascible luck and Gansey refuses to take anything that works more than 60% of the time.

Ronan is even will to bet, knowing himself and knowing Gansey, that he has presented Gansey with just such a car, and been refused.

“It’s green,” Adam whispers, agonized. “Lime green.”

Ronan chortles, and Blue gives them both a look.

“What are you gossiping about?” she demands.

“Whether or not it was Ronan or I that wore the dress,” Adam replies smoothly. It’s disconcerting, how good he is at lying,

“I hope it was neither of you. I mean, I know that the virgin bride in a white dress thing is more representative now, but that’s stretching the bonds of symbolism a bit far, don’t you think”

Blue seems to be under the impression that all Aglionby boys have had multiple partners, usually at the same time. None of them have been able to persuade her otherwise.

Adam snorts. “What was your excuse, then?”

“Excuse me?” Blue actually turns around in her seat to look at him. “Adam Parrish, are you calling me a slut?”

Adam just gives her that raised eyebrow look. Ronan wonders where he learned to weaponize his silences, and then immediately decides that he doesn’t want to know. He suspects it might have been him.

Blue goes a spectacular shade of red. “Just because my future self is likely not limited by social conventions that demand a woman be pure and chaste, and is probably free and open with her sexuality.” Gansey makes a choked off noise from beside her. His neck is going red. “Does not give you or anyone else the right to call me a slut. It’s just another patriarchal term used to confine-”

“Oh look,” Gansey says in a strangled voice. “We’re here.”

Blue gives Adam a filthy look. “Don’t think I’m done.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

As he climbs out of the Pig, Ronan hisses to Adam, “I can’t believe you said that.”

Adam just shakes his head. “I forgot how,” he gestures, “Blue she is.”

“I can’t imagine her ever being less zealous,” Gansey says, watching her take the steps up to the porch two at a time.

“Oh, she isn't,” Adam replies sardonically. “She’s just better at knowing when people are trying to rile her up.”

“You being so mellow at 18 yourself,” Gansey replies. Adam bumps his shoulder against Gansey’s teasingly. Gansey bumps him back.

“Are you coming in or not?” Blue hollers from the door.

“How about not?” Ronan mutters under his breath. Adam grins.

“They don’t bite. Much.”

“Much,” Ronan repeats sarcastically, but he follows Adam and Gansey up the stairs. He can see Noah perched on the hood of the camero. When Ronan catches his eye, he waves.

Ronan doesn’t think he’ll ever really be used to 300 Fox Way, or the women who live there. Or, people, he supposes. Mr. Grey is washing dishes in the sink when they step into the kitchen, and he can see Blue’s dad on a couch through the open door to the rest of the house. Orla is painting her nails at the kitchen table, and the heavy scent of the polish fills the room. Ronan wrinkles his nose.

She looks up when they come in. She clearly writes off Gansey and Ronan, but her eyes fix on Adam. “Hello there,” she drawls out, slow as honey.

“Shut up, Orla,” Blue says. “He’s married.” To them, she says “We don’t have any readings today. So everyone should be available.”

“Goody,” Ronan says sarcastically. He’s watching the way Adam moves around the kitchen. Familiar. Knowing. It’s not some relic of the past, like Monmouth is. It’s somewhere he knows. The thought makes Ronan prickle uncomfortably. He wants to get out of here.

“Mom!” Blue shouts up the stairs. “Mom, we’ve got company!”

“Tell ‘em to go home!” Calla shouts back.

“You’ll want to see this!”

Ronan thinks of how he and Matthew and Declan would do the same. His mom would say “Use your indoor voices. Were you raised in a barn?” And they would all grin and say “Yep!” And she would roll her eyes and smile and say “Well, carry on then.”

He wonders if he ever manages to fix her, to get her out of Cabeswater. He doubts Adam will tell him.

Orla is still watching them all carefully. Mr. Grey is still washing the dishes like he hasn’t a care in the world. Ronan parks himself as far away as he can.

“What’s your name, handsome?” she says to Adam.

Adam’s grin is sharp. It means trouble. “You know my name, Orla. And I know that you’re only flirting this much because you don’t want anyone here to know about your boyfriend in the city. Good call- you can do better.”

Orla goes still. Then her chair clatters back as she stands. “Maura, Calla! Get the hell down here!”

When Adam catches Ronan’s eye, he winks. Ronan grins back. Maybe he could like this Adam. It’s nice to see him fucking with other people for a change.

Mr. Grey puts his plate in the drying wrack and turns to look at them at last.

“Hello, Dean,” Adam says passively. Mr. Grey goes tense all over. Ronan watches with interest. He likes seeing him uncomfortable.

“Who are you?” Mr. Grey’s tone is just as calmly reasonable as Adam’s, but it sets Ronan’s teeth on edge.

“A friend,” Adam replies.

“I don’t have friends.”

Adam snorts at that. “If you say so.” He gives the kitchen around the a broad look, as if asking why else Mr. Grey would be there.

“Adam, sit down and stop talking. Mr. Grey, it’s fine. He really is a friend. Orla, for god’s sake, close up your nail polish. It’s giving me a headache.” Blue issues commands like a military general, and Ronan is reluctantly impressed.

Mr. Grey stands at the sink, watching Adam like a soldier might watch an enemy combatant with whom one has just exchanged peace talks. If Ronan were in any position to give a single flying fuck about anything Mr. Grey did, he might be touched at how much the man trusted Blue’s words.

“Something is amiss, amiss, amiss.” The lyrical tone drifts through the open door. “Oh, what a miss. Missed the mark, the time. Missed the point.” Gwenllian follows after. Ronan is amazed that she somehow looks even more like a crazy person than when they pulled her from a whole in the ground.

She looks at each of them in turn. “It is not you, little king,” she says. “No, no more than usual. This is not your doing.”

Gansey has become somewhat disillusioned with Gwenllian and the magic she represents, so he just crosses his arms over his chest and meets her stare for stare. Ronan is weirdly proud of him.

When she turns her gaze to Ronan, he bares his teeth at her. She bares her right back, and with her hair wild around her face, she looks feral. “It it not your knight, your loyal dog. But there is magic here,” she lifts her head like she is waiting for a rainfall. “Oh, the magic. It sings. Can you hear it, flower?” The last, apparently, to Blue.

Blue gives her a thoroughly unimpressed look. “I can’t hear anything over your wailing,” she says, and Ronan is reminded why he likes Blue so much.

Gwenllian closes her eyes and points out her hand. She spins, slowly, on one foot like a ballerina. She looks almost delicate like that. Unerringly, she comes to stop with her fingers pointing directly at Adam. She opens her eyes.

“The magician,” she says, more lucid than Ronan is used to hearing from her. “But more a magician now.” She strides directly up to him, peering into his eyes, her nose bare centimeters from his. “Time has touched you, and you are not young.”

“Rude,” Adam mutters. Ronan snorts.

“You have stepped through time, but you are apart. This time is your time and not you time and it is all time,” Gwenllian singsongs. She cocks her hairs to watch him. “Are you his magi? Have you walked through time to serve your king? To pick a delicate flower? To win a knight’s favor?

Ronan feels his face flush.

“Would you get out?” Blue snaps. “We’re trying to solve the mysteries of the universe here.”

“The mysteries of the universe or the mysteries of time?” Gwenllian asks. “Or are they one and the same? Woven, woven tight. You cannot separate them you know.”

“Don’t you have feathers to put in your hair?” Blue shoves at Gwenllian’s side, but Gwenllian stands firm. Blue only comes up to her chin. “Orla, do you want to help me?”

Orla has her head propped on her chin. “I’m good.”

Gwenllian spins away from Blue and back to Adam. She puts both her hands on his chest and leans into him, and Ronan goes tense. “So much power in you. You could light the world aflame.” Her voice lilts into a song again. “The flames are hot, we dance, we dance. The witches cry, they laugh, they laugh.”

Adam doesn’t blink. “Not on my watch.”

“Such conviction! You are a flame, magi, you are a fire. But you do not burn your friends.” She leans even closer, and still Adam doesn’t lean back. “But you would watch the world burn to ash for their sake. Is that better, or worse?”

Adam regards her. His face is stone cold and still. “I like your hair better short.”

She pushes off from him with a wild laugh. “Time touches us all, and yet we are untouched. You and I, our paths are crossed. Magic knows magic.”

“I’ve got my own witch, thanks.”

Gwenllian laughs delightedly. “And more besides! Their auras cling to you. You are an army alone.” She turns her head to look at Gansey. “Or is it his army?”

Adam doesn’t reply, and the whole room has gone still.

“‘Queens and kings, kings and queens,” Gwenllian sings. Blue groans.

“This again. Let me guess, the next bit is,”

“Blue lily, lily blue,” she and Gwenllian say it together, Gwenllian singing, Blue in monotone. Gwenllian looks delighted at Blue’s participation.

“Crowns and birds, swords and things,” Adam finishes, picking up from Blue when she trails away. His voice is somber and serious, more than Ronan thinks Gwenllian’s ramblings deserve.

“Blue lily, lily blue.” The three of them finish together, and it sounds eerie in the echoing quiet of the kitchen. Adam’s face is pale and drawn.

“The magi knows,” Gwenllian says, with a smug smile in Adam’s direction. “You will soon, blue lily, lordling.” She gives Ronan a sharp smile, “knight errant.”

The silence holds the kitchen again.

“What the hell is taking you so long?” Orla roars in the direction of the stairs. Ronan jumps. He had forgotten she was there.

“Keep your pants on!” Calla shouts back.

Gwenllian laughs again.

“Get out,” Blue says. This time, when she pushes at Gwenllian, Gwenllian goes. She pauses only a moment to smooth an errant strand of Blue’s hair down. It’s ineffective.

“You’ll learn,” she says, and she sounds sad. She sounds human. It’s disconcerting.

“Get out!” Blue shouts.

Mr. Grey is still standing tense in the corner of the kitchen, and he takes a step forward, like he wants to help. He stops when Maura comes through into the kitchen. Her bare feet and the knees of her jeans are dirty. Gwenllian smiles at Blue, then drifts back out of the kitchen like the world’s least fashionable ghost.

“What is all this commotion?” Maura asks, wiping her hands absently on her thighs. Her gaze passes right over all the boys and comes to rest on Orla. “Orla, how many times do I have to ask you not to do that in the kitchen?”

Orla scowls. “I really think that we have some bigger issues here.” She jerks her head at Adam, and Maura follows the motion. Her eyes go wide.

“Oh,” she says softly. Then she turns to the door that Gwenllian had just passed through. “Is that what set her off?”

“Nothing sets her off,” Blue says. “She’s ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.”

“Blue,” Maura admonishes, but there is no heat in it. Her eyes focus back on Adam.

“Hey, Maura.” Adam gives her an awkward wave.

Unlike Orla and Mr. Grey, she clearly recognizes him immediately. She gropes for a kitchen chair and sinks down. “I think,” she says slowly, “that we had all better sit down and have a nice long talk.”

Gansey and Ronan exchange a nervous look. Adam fidgets at his ring. Orla is still staring at Adam. After a moment, she calls up the stairs again.

“Calla, bring your deck!”

“Would you quit hollerin’?” Calla shouts back. Ronan snorts.

“I don’t think that’s really necessary,” Adam starts.

Maura cuts him off. “Oh, I really think that it is.” There is steel in her voice. “Sit.”

Meekly, more meekly than Ronan has ever seen Adam do anything, Adam slides into the seat across from her. Blue gives him a smug look as she sits beside him.

“You too,” Maura snaps to Ronan and Gansey. The table feels crowded with the five of them, plus Orla, squeezed around it, but the table itself is big. Rona supposes it would have to, for all the women he constantly sees around the place, nameless and unidentified.

Calla stomps in a few seconds later, her face like a thundercloud. “What the hell was so important you had to interrupt-” her eyes go uncannily to Adam. “Oh.” She sits at the table with enough force to make Ronan feel in beneath his feet. “Look who just walked in. It’s trouble.”

“Still just Adam.” There is, again, that sense of casual familiarity. Adam’s path hadn’t parted him too far from the ladies of 300 Fox Way. Ronan isn’t entirely sure that he’s comfortable with that. But, well, it’s not like he’s ever gotten a say in what Adam does with his life. He doesn’t think that will change if they do actually get married.

“Coca-cola shirt,” Calla says, like she wants to make sure.

Adam sighs gustily. “Yes. Coca-cola shirt.”

“Do they still call you that?” Blue asks.

Maura gives her daughter a sharp look, but Adam just rolls his eyes. “For about the next two years, yeah. I think I ended up setting that shirt on fire.”

Ronan can’t imagine an Adam that would ever be so wasteful of good clothing, so he snorts a laugh. Adam, Calla and Mr. Grey all turn to look at him. The others don’t look away from Adam.

“Tell me everything,” Maura commands. Calla slides her deck over the table and Marua catches it under her hand without breaking eyecontact. “Start with what had Gwenllian up in such a state.”

“No.” Adam crosses his arms over his chest.

“Excuse me?” Maura says, with the feigned politeness that Ronan has only ever heard from mothers. His mom had done that, he’d even heard it from Gansey’s mother. He wonders if Adam’s mom had ever sounded like that.

Adam tilts his chin up, and for the first time he looks more like an adult than he looks like Adam. Ronan has almost gotten used to his easy confidence, the way his mouth twitches up, the way the lines on his face are from age and not exhaustion. This isn’t like that. This is something new, something different. This is a stranger in his friends skin, who knows that he is an equal to anyone in this room.

“No,” Adam repeats, and the tone of his voice sends shivers down Ronan’s back. Not the bad kind. “There is a lot at stake here. You of all people know about meddling in the future. Or the past.” His eyes flick to where Artemus is still visible on the couch in the other room, apparently asleep. It is baffling to Ronan how anyone could sleep through the Gwenllian-Orla-Calla triplethreat, but perhaps that is one of Artemus’ undisclosed powers.

Marua bristles like an irate cat, and Ronan has never seen her look more like Blue. “How dare-”

Adam cuts her off, and Ronan can actually see Blue’s mouth fall open. “Marua. I’m not trying to be trouble. I’ll tell you all what I can. But this is big. You know how big this is.” He holds her eyes, and eventually Maura swallows and nods. It’s agreement.

“Well this is all nice and heartwarming,” Calla drawls, “but I’m not convinced.”

Adam turns his gaze to her, and it’s razor sharp. It is also, Ronan notes uncomfortably, very sexy. This is an Adam who is completely in control, of himself and of the situation. It strikes at a deep, pavalonian part of his brain, and it makes Ronan want to fall to his knees. He bites down on that line of thought hard.

“You know the danger too, Calla,” there is something about the way he uses their first names, casual and familiar, that sounds more like a weapon than a conversation. He is saying, I know you. Adam never used to be good at this. “Or do you think I don’t know that 300 Fox Way only deals in generalities? No specifics.”

Blue goes tense, but the others only blink at him. The moment holds, stretches long. They’re all considering Adam now, not as a child but as an adversary. Ronan feels tense and shaky. He’s pretty sure that Blue would actually kill him if he broke anything in this house, but he wants desperately to try. Gansey gives him a warning look and Ronan settles.

“Hm,” Calla says, rolling the word around in her mouth. “Give me your hand, boy.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m older than you,” Adam grumbles.

Calla cackles. “Flattery will get you nowhere,

“I’m older than her,” Adam jerks his head at Orla, who gives him a filthy look.

“For now,” Orla snaps.

Calla waggles her fingers. Her nails are sharp and cruel looking. Adam gives them a distrustful look.

“I don’t trust you,” she snaps. “You know so much, then you know this won’t give me details. Take my hand or get out.”

Adam stares at her, and she meets his gaze head on. Then, resigned, Adam drops his hand into hers. His left hand, Ronan notices. Calla’s grip tightens around his convulsively. Even from where Ronan is sitting, at the far of the the table from her, he can see the way her jaw clenches.

Finally, she drops his hand. “Really?” is all she says. “The snake?”

Adam shrugs, loose and languid. “I like him.”

Calla makes a disgusted noise. “You would.”

When Ronan looks at Adam, startled, he finds Adam looking back at him. He almost expects Adam to wink again, intent as he clearly is on destroying all of Ronan’s sanity. Instead, he just Ronan a devastatingly sweet smile and turns back to Calla. Ronan resists the urge to put his head in his hands. Nothing in his life has prepared him for this kind of shit.

“What did you see?” Gansey asks eagerly.

“Coca-cola is right,” Calla says. “It’s too big.”

Ronan and Blue groan at the same moment. He has never felt more connected with her.

“This is so stupid!” Blue snarls. “Do we even know why he is here?”

Maura taps the top of her deck thoughtfully. “I could do a reading,” she says slowly.

“No. I want to hear it from Adam.” Blue turns her fiery gaze on Adam, who taps his fingers absently on the table. His wedding ring clicks against the wood. “What was Gwenllian talking? What magic? What army?”

“It’s not an army,” Adam replies. “It’s just us. It’s always been us.”

Gansey leans forward. “The five of us?”

The others might not notice the minute hesitation before Adam nods, but Ronan does. “Yes. It’s like they told us on our first day,” he nods at Maura, “we’re… loud. That’s what she was getting off me.”

Gansey looks delighted. “We do find Glendower, don’t we!”

Adam closes his eyes. “Gansey, please.”

“Right, of course. No questions. My apologies.”

“But why are you here?” Blue presses. “Why now?”

“Cabeswater needs something,” Adam says, in that same thoughtful tone. “Something that your Adam can’t do. It’s easier to tell, here in this house. If I had my cards,” he shrugs. “But I don’t.”

Maura absently turns over the first card and goes pale. “That’s not all.”

Adam tenses, and gaze flicks around the table. “You won’t like it.”

“I’ll recover,” Maura says sharply. Ronan cranes his head to get a look at the card. It’s the Page of Cups. “Why are you here?”

“I can’t tell you!” Adam snaps. “Literally, I cannot. It’s more of that time is circular thing. It has to happen, so that other things can happen so that I can come back here to make this happen.”

“How convenient,” Ronan snarls. “Are you going to just keep spoonfeeding us pieces of information, whenever it’s best for you?”

To his satisfaction, this actually gets a rise out of Adam. His fists clench on the table, and something flickers across his face. Frustration, maybe. It’s always been so easy to provoke Adam, it’s disconcerting how hard it is now.

“Do you think I like being here?” Adam growls. “I don’t know why I’m here, or how I can get back. I don’t know what made me switch back the first time, if it’s something I have to do here or if Cabeswater just gets tired of fucking with my life. And I know that if I do something wrong, or fuck it up, or tell you too much or too little, the life I have will be gone. So I’m sorry if this isn’t working for you, but I’m doing the best I can.”

“Hey,” Gansey puts his hand over Adam’s, “it’s alright. You’re not alone.”

Adam yanks his hand away, and Gansey isn’t fast enough to hide the look of hurt that crosses his face. “Don’t you get it?” Adam runs his hands through his hair, just like their Adam always does when he gets flustered. “That is exactly what I am. You might as well be ghosts. My friends, my family, the ones I’ve spent more than half my life with, they’re gone! And I might never get them back. One wrong move, and I go back to a world full of strangers.”

For a moment, he just breathes, fast and shallow. Then he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he is all control. When he looks at them, his gaze is sad. “You don’t even know how young you are.”

“Hey!” Blue is, predictably, the first to protest. “We’re all legal adults here.”

Ronan hides a smirk. He’s not sure Blue has ever known that he is younger than her, but he likes that she doesn’t. He doesn’t need her knowing that he is still 17.

Adam, Maura and Calla snort as one, and the tension breaks.

“If it helps,” Adam says. “I’m not just trying to get home. I’m going to help you. You’re about to face a storm, and I’m going to make sure you’re prepared. And then I’m going to make sure you get your Adam back.”

Ronan makes it a point not to speak in this house when he can avoid it, but he leans forward in his chair. “Ok, so we want the same things then.” He meets Adam’s gaze head on. “What can we do to help?”

 

* * *

 

The trees feel familiar around him. The grass is cool beneath his feet. It feels like somewhere he has already been, or will be, or has always been. Time has never felt less real.

Adam lets the whisper of the trees guide him. His latin is good, better than Gansey’s, not as good as Ronan’s. It’s enough to understand the trees. Magician, they welcome him. Home, they say. Is this his home?

The sounds of the birds are strangely muted. When they do chirp, it’s with unfamiliar voices. Had he managed to uproot Cabeswater, to bring it to this strange new place? Suquitur, they say. Follow.

Follow what? The path seems to yawn before him, a walkway of smooth grass that feels as rich and soft as carpet. Not a single stone or branch under his feet, nothing to remind him that he walks outside in his bare feet.

“Where am I?” he asks aloud, and the wind ruffles his hair. It feels like a rebuke. Clumsily, he forms his words into latin. Abruptly, painfully, he wants Ronan here. Not the teasing stranger in the house, but his Ronan.

He had suspected that he would miss Ronan when he left, but it’s strange to feel it so clearly. He had never been sure. But he wants Ronan here, now, at his side. He pushes the thought aside. It would be nice to have a translator, that’s all. Some company in this eerie quiet.

As if in answer to his thoughts, probably in answer to his thoughts, a bird calls from his left. It’s not a familiar sound. It’s too musical, too sweet, and it sets him on edge. He deliberately takes the fork of the path away from it.

Magician, the trees whisper. He can hear them in both ears now.

Time has lost meaning as he keeps walking. The light stays golden and true, and air doesn’t get colder or hotter. The season stays a late spring, and the pollen tickles his nose. He doesn’t know how long he walks, minutes or hours or days. Somewhere along the way, it feels as though he is walking too something, that there is a destination.

His first clue is the sweet smell of fresh water and moss. It’s a smell he’s started to associate with happiness, lying on the ground at Cabeswater, soaking up the heat of the sun and pretending that he can’t feel Ronan’s eyes on him.

Now, he is alone. There are no eyes on him.

Through the trees, he can see dappled patterns on the trees, like reflections off water. From a distance, the trees seem to make a wall of foliage, but when he draws close, it’s an arched doorway of leaves. He’s not sure if it was there before, but he runs his hands along the tree barks and whispers his thanks.

It’s beautiful here, wherever he is. It’s not Cabeswater, that is clear. The dreaming tree, the malicious yawing hole that smelled of rot and decay isn’t present, and that alone relaxes him. Cabeswater has always been equal parts danger and comfort. The sense that it could turn on you if you spoke wrong.

This just feels like home.

A low basin of water fills the center of the clearing. It’s not big enough to be a pond, or even a pool. It’s hardly bigger than his sink. But when he draws closer, he can see that the bottom is soft sand, sloping gently down from the grass around it. He knows, instinctively, that if he were to drink it, it would be cool and sweet and refreshing.

He pulls back instead. He doesn’t trust beautiful things that come without a cost.

The area can’t be called a clearing. It’s not big enough for that. But if he tilts his head all the way back, he can see the sky. There is a circle of grass than spans twice the length of his arms, but roots encroach in on the sides. He doesn’t think that the five of them could fit here, not without a tight fit.

It’s nice. Cozy. It’s the same feeling as curling up under his blanket during a thunderstorm. The outside world was scary. But here is was small and contained and safe. Just for him.

Respice, the tree say.

“Look at what?” Adam asks the air, and the bird shrills at him, angry. Scowling, he asks it in Latin.

In answer, the pool seems to catch the light. It is, he realises, exactly the size of a scrying bowl.

He approaching it tentatively. There are grooves in the ground, and when he kneels down they fit his knees exactly.

Ronan has his temple, he thinks, apparently I have mine.

Persephone has warned him about scrying. It was dangerous, she warned, to have your soul leave your body.

But Adam has scryed before. He doesn’t want to know the future, he never has. He only wants to know himself. I am unknowable, he thinks again. Maybe that has only even been true about himself. Maybe he was the only one who did not know Adam Parrish.

He looks into the pool.

For a moment, he sees himself. Pale, tired, sad. As he has always been. There is a smudge on his cheek from working at the car shop, and it reminds him of Noah. He dips his hands into the pool, intending to wash it off. The water ripples, catches the light.

When he pulls his hand out again, the water stills, then changes. His hand falls to his side, his face remains dirty.

In the pool, he sees himself and Ronan. They can’t be much older than he is now, propped against the wall of St. Agnes, their feet stretched out across his bed. The Adam in the vision leans his head on Ronan’s shoulder. They are both laughing at something, but Adam can’t hear it.

His heart speeds up, watching the way he tilts into Ronan, that Ronan tilts into him.

Adam draws in a breath. Between the in and the out, he is in his vision.

“Gansey is talking about following her,” Ronan says. “Can you imagine?”

Adam shakes his head, and distantly, Adam knows that his version of himself knows what Ronan is talking about. He can barely concentrate on it though. He is in his own body and outside of it. He understands and he does not.

“What about you?”Adam-on-the-bed asks. “Do you know where you’re going?” He won’t look at Ronan as he says it. He plays with his own hands. His head moves when Ronan shrugs.

“I’ve hear there’s good real estate in Boston.”

Adam snorts. “Says who.” Then. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Ronan repeats, but it lacks heat. Adam rolls his head on Ronan’s shoulder. From his angle, he can see the razor sharp angle of Ronan’s jaw, the jut of his cheekbone. Ronan looks down at him.

Adam in the forest knows what’s about to happen just before it does. He draws breath, and he doesn’t know if it’s him in the present or him on bed. Then Ronan and Adam are kissing. It is unmistakably a new kiss. Not the first, but near enough. Their noses bump, and neither of them knows where to put their hands. Then Adam, Adam on the bed, is tugging, pulling on Ronan’s shoulders until they are both lying, halfway across the bed. Adam can feel the weight of Ronan on top of him, a phantom warmth.

The kiss sweeps through him, even with this disconnect of the vision. He gasps for air, and he sucks in oxygen even though the Adam on the bed is doing better things with his mouth.

Then the vision fades away and Adam is abruptly, nowhere. “This isn’t what I wanted to know!” he shouts at nothing. He can feel his body back at the forest pond, but he isn’t there now. He is here. Somewhere. The trees laugh at him.

Then he’s back. The room is familiar. There is a hand on his waist and he knows that it will be Ronan without looking. Gansey’s house in unchanged. When Adam look down, he is wearing a suit. It’s not one he owns now.

“What,” Ronan says into his ear, “the actual fuck.”

Adam turns his gaze to follow Ronan’s. Gansey is dancing with Blue, who has clearly never danced to anything in her life, but that’s not what has drawn Ronan’s ire. By the catering, Declan is feeding finger sandwiches to a tall man with blonde curls. Adam makes a choking noise, and Ronan makes a sound that makes Adam, both Adam’s, wonder if he’s going to be sick.

Declan must sense their gaze, because he glances over at them just then. But then he turns back to his date with a smirk, and gives his date a pointed kiss on the cheek.

“Hell. No.” Ronan enunciates, and he tugs Adam to him by the hips. “Hell fucking no.”

“You should support your brother in his lifestyle choices,” Adam can hear himself say, and he knows the sound of laughter in his own mouth. “He’s been pretty supportive so far.”

“I’ll give him supportive,” Ronan growls, and Adam can feel the way it goes straight to the gut of the Adam at the party. It goes to his gut too, in the forest. He feels it down to his toes. Ronan pulls him into a kiss, so fast that Adam feels dizzy. It’s passionate and familiar, and too intimate for a Gansey party. He can’t believe that his vision self is letting Ronan get away with it.

It’s Ronan who pulls away first. “Dance with me.”

“What?” Adam asks, dazed and amused.

Ronan’s eye sparkle, and he is tugging before Adam can answer. “Dance with me.”

Adam follows him. Adam, the real Adam, can tell that he would follow Ronan everywhere.

Then the scene flickers again, again, again.

The room is dark. It’s full of the scents and sounds of sex, but it’s not Ronan. The hair that falls around him is long and red and Adam hasn’t seen any girls naked in real life, but he knows one when he sees it.

She is riding him with a furious abandon that makes him want to avert his eyes, but the Adam of the moment just watches her. There is no passion in his gaze. His stomach is snakes and ice. Adam doesn’t know why, but he knows, just knows, that he hasn’t spoken with Ronan in months.

He closes his eyes tight and lets the water carry him away.

“This is so ridiculous,” he feels his vision self whisper. When he opens his eyes, it takes him a moment to orient himself around the sudden closeness of Ronan. At this distance he is pale skin and one huge blue eye.

“Shut up,” Ronan hisses back. “I said we should elope.”

In the background, Adam can hear Latin.

“You fucking liar.”

He feels a kick at the back of his leg. When he looks away from Ronan, he sees Blue at his back. She is resplendent in what is clearly a bridesmaid dress. He can’t tell if it’s supposed to be that ugly or if it was her handiwork. At her side is a man Adam can’t place, and another woman he doesn’t know. Blue jerks her eyes at his left.

Adam almost loses hold of the vision in his shock, but the vision holds him tight. It’s a priest. He is droning on in latin, and vision Adam can understand him perfectly. Over Ronan’s shoulder, he can see Gansey, who looks on the verge of tears.

“You may kiss your husband,” the priest says.

“Thank god,” Ronan whispers.

“Blasphemy,” Adam laughs, and lets Ronan dip him into a kiss.

Adam yanks himself out of the visions. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t understand this. Coming out of the visions feels like almost drowning. Or coming up from almost drowning. For a moment, he can only see his own expression again. He is nothing like that other Adam. His face is pinched, unhappy and confused. Then the water stills completely and he sees Blue’s reflection next to him.

“That,” the reflection says, “was monumentally stupid.”

Adam screams.

Blue watches him flail with an impassive expression. He ends up tilted over on his side next to the pond, looking up at her.

For a moment, she just looks down at him, and he worries that Blue might be just as terribly changed as everything else seems to be.

Then she grins and pulls him up by the arms until he is sitting beside her. “Parrish, you beautiful disaster.”

He brushes the loose dirt off of his t-shirt. When he thought about being in his boxers around Blue, this wasn’t how he imagined it. “Since when do you call me Parrish?”

“Ronan is calling you Parrish, right?”

“Ronan always calls me Parrish.”

Blue rolls her eyes. “Not anymore he doesn’t. It makes it easier. You’re Parrish. We’re missing Adam. Cognitive dissonance.”

Adam squints at her. “You’ve been hanging out with Gansey too much.”

“Guilty,” her face is easy, pleased, when she says it. It’s not what he was expecting. “Now, do you want to tell me what the hell you were thinking, sticking your head into a strange scrying pool. No wards, no shields, no kind of protection at all!”

“Wards?” Adam asks.

“Yes! You could have been killed, or taken over, or worse. You’re lucky we’re at the Glens or you probably would have been.”

Adam is starting to feel like being back at Cabeswater in his own time, hearing a language he only half understands. “I don’t know what you’re saying!” he snaps. He’s used to feeling like this around Gansey. He never expected it from Blue.

Blue groans and rubs her temple dramatically. “Oh my god you’re so young. Do you even know how to make a basic compass ward?”

“I don’t know what a compass ward is.”

“Right.” Blue tosses her hair back. It’s longer than he’s used to seeing it, falling past her shoulders. When she shakes her head, he can see that the other side is cropped close to her head. “Right. Of course you don’t.”

Adam digs his fingers into the grass under him. “Should I?”

“Yes,” Blue says. “No. I’m not sure. I hate time bullshit. Yes, because it’s something that you need to know. No, because before now you would have had no way to learn it. It’s not your fault, it’s just the time stream continuum,” she laughs. “God.”

“Sure,” Adam says sarcastically. “That cleared things right up.”

Blue throws her hands up in the air. “What do you want from me? Your useless future self neglected to tell us this was coming!”

“You think he knew?”

Blue’s tone is scathing. “Gee, Adam, I dunno. You plan to just go back to your time and totally forget about this?”

Adam intends to mark the exact date of 2025 in every calendar he has the second he gets back to 2015. He ducks his head.

“How did you know I was here?”

Blue gives him a look like he is too stupid to know. “Ronan called me. He was worried.”

Adam snorts. “Yeah, right.”

Blue lean back onto the ground, arms crossed behind her head. “I’m giving you a pass, because you’re 18 and an idiot, don’t push it. You know Ronan cares about you. This Ronan, your Ronan. That Ronan from an alternate universe that one time.”

Adam’s mouth drops open. “What?”

She grins at him. “Kidding.” After a moment, she adds “Or am I?”

Adam opens and closes his mouth. “That can’t be possible.”

“Says the time traveling teenager.”

“Touche.”

Blue stretches luxuriously, and Adam watches her. Her tank top rides up her stomach, revealing pale skin above her dark cargo shorts. She looks very eco warrior, missing only a machete and a large brimmed hat. She is still attractive, but he doesn’t feel that jolt when he look at her. She is just a beautiful woman. It’s oddly reassuring. He doesn’t want to be spending this future life with her. He doesn’t want to have woken up in a bed with Blue wearing his ring instead.

Sighing, he lies down beside her. “What did you call this place?”

The sky seems impossibly blue above him. He holds his arm up to block the sun from shining directly into his eyes.

“The Glens. That’s technically your whole property, but I meant this area.”

Adam covers his face with his hands and groans. “I live in a house with a name?”

“A really pretentious name too,” Blue says gleefully. “Whisperglen. Except you and Ronan refuse to call it that.”

“No shit.”

Blue laughs. “It could be worse. I think my place is called Pemberley.”

“That’s Pride and Prejudice.”

“Is it? I never read it. Maybe Gansey thought it was funny.”

Adam snorts. That sounds like Gansey. “Are you pride or are you prejudice?” he asks.

“I just said I didn’t read the book, Parrish.”

“You didn’t see the movie?”

Blue makes a low noise in her throat. “Believe in or not, I wans’t born with innate knowledge of Jane Austen just because I have a vagina.”

“I was born with an innate knowledge of all things car related,” Adam replies. “All boys are, you know.”

Blue snorts. “Yeah, tell that to Gansey. If I don’t get a call today about him needing a ride, I’ll be shocked.”

“Are you two,” he hesitates, “married?” He hadn’t noticed a wedding ring, but he hadn’t been looking.

“Marriage is an antiquated ritual used to bind women as property and limit their personal freedom.”There is no heat to the words. It is not, strictly speaking, a no. Adam grins. Gasney can be pretty persuasive.

“I am serious though, Parrish,” Blue continues. It’s jarring, to hear his last name on her tongue. “If you had tried scrying anywhere else, you would have died.”

“That’s a bit harsh. Persephone only said that it could be dangerous.”

“That was ten years ago, and Persephone was an obscure psychic who lived on an inactive leyline for most of her life.”

Adam rolls his head over to look at her. In profile, she looks more like the Blue he knows. Her hair falls into the grass and he can’t see how long it’s gotten. Her eyelashes are a dark curve against her cheeks. With her eyes closed, the signs of age around her eyes disappear.

“Am I in danger?”

“No.” Blue says it with iron certainty, which comforts him. “Not in the Glens, and not with me and Ronan around,” she adds. Which does not.

“So I would be in danger by myself?” Blue doesn’t reply, which is an answer on it’s own. “Why am I safer here?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Adam scowls and nudges her leg with his foot. Somehow, it feels easier with her than it has in weeks. Maybe it’s this place, but more likely it’s that she doesn’t have the secret of her whatever with Gansey hanging over her, and Adam doesn’t feel the same edge of rejection around this girl- woman.

She rolls onto her side up props herself on her elbow to look at him. “It’s obvious isn’t it? This place is Yours.” She says it like the word is bigger than it is. It does not belong to him. It is of him. “Can’t you feel it?”

He can feel something. He’s not sure what it is. It feels like home.

“What do you mean, mine?”

“Well, yours and Ronan’s. You made it.”

Adam sits up to stare at her. “We made it? The forest?” He has the weirdest mental image of him and Ronan in a hospital

Blue snorts. “Calm down, Hansel. It’s shrubbery at best.”

It doesn’t look like shrubbery. It looks like a forest.

“Go back to the part where I made this?”

“You and Ronan,” she corrects. “I wish I knew. This was a nice field one day. I think there was a cow. Next, it’s a mini-Cabeswater. Only less creepy.”

“And it protects people?”

Blue lets out an exasperated breath. “It protects you. It doesn’t give a damn what happens to me.”

The trees rustle around them, as if in protest. Blue smiles. “Well, it might care a little.”

“Your latin has gotten better.”

“It kind of had to.”

“Because the trees speak latin.” What is his actual life.

“Among other things.”

Adam shakes his head. “I am not a fan of this cryptic shtick you have going on now.”

Blue grins, broad and beautiful. “It’s part of my heritage.”

He thinks of Maura, refusing to tell Gansey about the leylines. He thinks about Artemus, as illusive as a cat, who never answers a question he can dance around. She’s not wrong.

“Do you know how I can get back home?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know why I’m here?”

“Yep.”

Adam drops back to the ground. “That was so helpful. Thanks, Blue.”

“Anytime.” She watches him for a long moment. “What did you see?”

“Hm?”

“In the water.”

Adam snorts and kicks at the grass with his heel. “Nothing helpful.”

“Yeah, ok,” Blue says sarcastically.

“Me and Ronan bullshit. As if Persephone didn’t tell me that seeing the future in a scrying bowl is chancy at best.”

“You’re forgetting a crucial detail, dear Parrish.”

He shudders. “Oh my god, don’t call me that! You sound like Gansey.”

Blue steamrollers over him, as though he had never spoken. “You forget- you weren’t looking at the future. You were looking at the past.”

Adam grits his teeth. He doesn’t want to think about that. “I didn’t want to see the past. Or the future. I just want to go home.”

“Tough cookies.”

Adam pushes up off the ground, hard. He walks from one end of the clearing to the other, clenching and unclenching his fists. Blue just watches him, her face calm.

“You don’t have any kind of control,” Blue says, watching him. “Persephone helped you center everything. To read magic. But what you have is different what she had. You can’t control what you see in the scrying, just like you can’t control your temper.”

“That’s not-” he cuts himself off. He hasn’t lost his temper around his Blue, around anyone, in months. But he is still afraid he might. Sometimes in boils up in him, hot and wild and uncontrollable. It scares him, and she isn’t wrong. There is nothing in his life he can control. Not even himself. His fists clench tight at his sides, nails digging into the skin.

“You saw you and Ronan because that’s what this forest is based around. It forced it’s own emotional imprint on your pitiful attempts to find out anything real.”

Adam forces his fists to unclench before he turns back to her. In the dappled light of the clearing, sun gleaming off of her dark hair, Blue is beautiful, and he can't bring himself to care. He feels so tired.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” he asks.

Blue grins, and she has never looked more like Ronan. “I’m going to teach you magic.”


	3. Chapter 3

Adam slumps back against the ground, limbs spread wide. “This is stupid.”

Ronan looks up at him and snorts. Adam flips him off. Ronan had wandered into the clearing 20 minutes ago and made himself comfortable, watching as Adam tried and failed to do magic. There was no sign of their disagreement, if it could even be called that, on his face.

Blue glares at them both. “Maybe you’re just not trying hard enough.”

“Yeah, this is all my fault,” Adam draws, frustration drawing out his vowels, slow and sarcastic.

“Well, it’s not my fault!”

“I think the answer is obvious,” Ronan says, watching them both with clear amusement. “It’s both of your fault.”

“Shut up,” Blue and Adam snap together. Infuriatingly, Ronan just chuckles. It’s entirely unlike how Adam’s Ronan laughs. Adam’s Ronan always sounds angry, or hysterical, or bitter. This Ronan has a deep laugh, like it rumbles up from his stomach or his toes. It’s not always happy, but it’s content.

It catches at something in Adam’s chest, a tug of affection or arousal. He wonders what it would take to get his Ronan to laugh like that. He wants it, desperately. Wants his Ronan to be relaxed and content and to look at him with such open affection and- no. No.

“I have an idea,” Rona says.

Blue throws her hands up in the air. “By all means, go ahead. It’s not like I’m the only one here who knows magic or anything.”

Adam cocks his head at her. “Did you know that you’ve started talking like Gansey? Like an angry Gansey.”

“I talk like myself, Adam Parrish.” Blue’s eyes are sharp and bright.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s super sorry, no offense intended, can we move on?” Ronan drops down beside Adam, settling into a lotus position that looks so natural to him that it crosses into unnatural. It’s like seeing some other Ronan. A Ronan who does yoga, perhaps. A Ronan who excels at ballet.

Adam and Blue are seated in the same pose, Adam having pulled himself into position with considerably less grace. With the three of them on the soft grass, Ronan making the third point of an awkward triangle.

“I swear to god Ronan, if you tell me to close my eyes and count to ten-” Adam starts, then stops abruptly when Ronan reaches out and puts his hand on top of Adam's. Adam stares down at their hands, Ronan's skin looking pale over Adam's dark tan.

“Does that sound like something I would say?” Ronan asks, and a sardonic smile curls at his lips. He seems utterly unconcerned by Adam’s silence, by the feel of Adam’s hand under his own. Perhaps it was a familiar sensation. Ronan doesn’t pull away.

“Personally, I live in hope that you someday attend anger management classes,” Blue remarks, and Ronan shoves her without looking away from Adam.

“You're having trouble focusing your magic, right?”

Adam scowls. “I don't know what I'm having trouble with.”

He's a bit worried that Ronan will make fun of him for it, and he's surprised when Ronan squeezes his fingers instead. It makes his stomach drop into his toes, into the very ground beneath his feet, and he hates it. Ronan’s hand is warm.

Then Ronan adds, “It's nice to know you aren't a natural genius at everything.”

Adam is a natural genius at nothing. His intelligence is hard work and ambition and a solid unwillingness to accept what his life has given him thus far. It's infuriating to think that Ronan doesn't know that by now.

He yanks his hand out from under Ronan's. It bothers him more with this Ronan than it ever has with his own because he expects this Ronan to know better. He wants him to know better.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he snaps. After a moment, he realizes he has clutched his hand to his chest like an injured maiden, and lets it fall back into his lap.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “I didn't say you were a disappointment, Parrish, god. I forgot how sensitive you get.”

“I'm not sensitive!”

Beside him, Blue snorts a laugh. Ronan shoves her again.

“I'm sorry I said you were smart,” Ronan say, “Won't happen again.”

His words are joking, but he won't drop Adam's eyes. Ronan looks sincere, and Adam abruptly feels that even if Ronan's words are joking, Ronan himself is not.

Adam looks away first. “Whatever.”

“Oh my god,” Blue says. “Is this really how you two communicate? Please say yes. This is amazing. It’s so bad it’s good. Can we film this?”

“Shut up, maggot.”

“What were you saying about magic?” Adam asks, before the two of them can escalate.

Ronan reaches out and takes his hand again and Adam almost pulls away out of pure surprise. Ronan just holds on tight.

“I was trying to say that Adam usually does complex stuff in Cabeswater, in the Glen, or with me.”

From the way that Blue turns to look at Ronan, this is a surprise to her as well. “Why?” she asks. “Being in Cabeswater makes sense, it’s a dream place and it has it’s own set of rules. And the Glens are warded, so that makes sense. But why would you make a difference? You’re not a mirror.”

Off of Adam’s confused expression, she clarifies. “An amplifier. A popular table at Starbucks.”

Ronan snorts. “Thank god for that.”

Blue crosses her arms over her chest. “Why does Adam care where you are when he does magic?”

To Adam's surprise and delight, Ronan's ears are going faintly red. “He says that I'm a focus.” The red sweeps across his cheekbones, making him look unnervingly, charmingly, delicate. “That I'm his focus.”

Blue's mouth makes a small 'oh' of understanding, and then she smiles. It spreads over her face like a sunrise, and she looks so honestly delighted that Adam is taken aback.

“What does that mean?” he asks, made curious by Blue’s amusement and Ronan’s embarrassment.

“Fuck if I know,” Ronan growls. Apparently his moment of vulnerability had angered him. Horrifyingly, Adam finds it charming.

“It means,” and Blue’s tone is all barely contained glee, “that his magic is stronger with you around. Because he loooooooves you.” She sing-songs the last bit, her words fading into giggles at the end. When Adam looks back at Ronan, his face is a glorious, fluorescent red.

“Shut the hell up,” he growls. Adam has never been scared of Ronan, even when Ronan was trying to scare him, but he is even less intimidating now, eyes alight in his red face and his spare hand clenched into the grass. His hand over Adam’s is soft and gentle.

Blue’s eyes soften, watching him. “I am serious, you know,” she says. “A focus isn’t a magical thing. It’s an emotional thing. It wouldn’t work if there wasn’t,” she shrugs, “you know. Love.”

Ronan’s fingers twitch over his, and he stares pointedly at the ground, not looking at Adam. Blue is watching them both, a small smile playing on her lips. Adam feels, momentarily, overwhelmingly filled with affection for them both. For the way Blue looks honestly delighted at this revelation. And more, for the way Ronan’s hand fits over his. The way he can almost feel the heat pouring off of Ronan’s cheeks. The way that Ronan’s other hand is clenched almost white but the hand on Adam’s is carefully relaxed.

He squeezes his eyes closed against the press of emotion, and for a moment, he wonders if his Ronan would be like this. Instantly, he has an answer. Of course he would. Ronan is sharp edges and bloodied teeth, and Ronan will push back on every inch that Adam pushes forward, but he can be achingly careful with Adam. Not always, not often- what do either of them know about being careful or being tender? But this Ronan is not as much a stranger as Adam likes to pretend.

Even the weight of Ronan’s hand on his is familiar. The two of them in Cabeswater, falling through darkness to make sure that Gansey won’t be hurt. The way it almost felt like he could feel Ronan’s pulse in his fingers, the press of their palms together. He wants that again. He wants the gentle sweep of blush across Ronan’s cheeks, and the warm weight of Ronan’s hand in his.

He wants to do magic with Ronan at his side, just because he can be. Not to save Maura, or keep Gansey safe or to wake an undead king. Just for the simple joy of creating, of being near Ronan.

The thought fills him up, sweeps through him like a wave. His hand turns in Ronan’s, their fingers interlocking. And then the feeling blooms up, almost overwhelming. Light sparks up in front of his eyes, and it’s like a miniature supernova.

In shock, he stares at the small, glowing light as it bobs in front of a him, the sun in miniature. Slowly, carefully, he reaches out and touches it. It dips under his finger and then rises back up.

In it’s light, Ronan looks luminescent. Absurdly, Adam thinks that is more an effect of his smile then the light. He can’t look away.

“Congrats,” Blue says, slow and pleased. “You just did magic.”

 

* * *

 

Blue catches Adam’s elbow on the way to the Pig.

“That’s it?” she hisses. Ronan can see the psychics of 300 Fox Way all pressed against the window near the porch and he doesn’t point it out to them.

Adam shrugs, and it’s so casually dismissive that Ronan’s skin prickles. It’s the Adam of Ronan’s dreams. Not the good ones. The ones where Ronan stands, torn open and exposed to Adam’s gaze. The one with an Adam who is so arrogantly dismissive, who stares at Ronan with cold, dispassionate eyes while Ronan pours his heart on to the ground.

“It’s all I needed,” Adam replies. “Sorry if it wasn’t what you were looking for.”

“What I was looking for was a way to get my friend back.” Blue’s voice is ice cold. Gansey had mentioned, once, that he thought Blue was like Ronan. At moments like this, she is all Adam, ice and stone. Between the two of them, they could freeze the world over.

“Believe it or not, Blue, I would love to go home. But that isn’t an option right now. Maura just confirmed that.”

“So it’s wham, bam, thank you ma’m. You got what you need and now you’re gone.” Blue says. To Ronan’s great surprise, the words make Adam flinch, and he twists his ring on his finger.

“It’s not like that,” Adam says, and his voice is suddenly soft, pleading.

“Now, Jane,” Gansey puts his hands on her shoulders and she shrugs him off. “Adam needs our help. We literally just agreed-”

“No, Ronan agreed. And we all know that Ronan is just stupid when Adam is involved.”

Ronan feels his face grow red, feels his stomach drop. He’d thought it was a secret. He feels a little like he might throw up. Maybe it won’t even be vomit and bile that comes up. Maybe this is all still a dream and he will toss feeling onto the floor at their feet. Adam, cold and uncaring, Blue all icey amusement, Gansey baffled confusion, while Ronan’s emotions writhe on the floor in front of them.

The moment passes, unseen.

“Ah,” Gansey says, slowly. He clearly did not agree with Blue’s assertion that all of them knew about Ronan’s particular brand of stupidity. “Be that as it may,” he rallies, “we either trust Adam, or we do not. I, for one, trust that Adam knows what he’s doing.”

“Big mistake,” Ronan mutters.

“And,” Gansey raises his voice to speak over him. “That Adam is working in our own best interest.”

“I am,” Adam says softly. “I promise.”

“Right.” Gansey nods, and just like that, it’s conversation over. “Where next?”

Adam looks down at himself, in his too-small sweat pants and Gansey’s shirt. “Can we go to the store?”

The ride in the Pig is awkward. Ronan is a bit worried that Blue might actually try to attack Adam for information if she sits next to him for too long. It’s something that he would pay good money to see, and he wants that information so much he can feel his head buzz with it, but he knows that set of Adam’s jaw.

Besides, Ronan is used to not getting what he wants.

The store is crowded for a summer day, and a sudden thought occurs to him. He grabs Adam’s elbow as they pass through the front door.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Let me guess. You would also like to interrogate me?”

“Did you call in for Adam?”

Adam blinks at him. “What?”

“At work. Did you call his boss. He can’t just miss work.”

“No I- I’m not even sure. Where did I work this summer? Was it still the car shop, or just the factory? Is Mr. Osborune still the supervisor?” He fumbles at his pockets, reaching for a phone Adam doesn’t own.

Ronan grits his teeth. “Adam can’t afford to take any days off. If he loses this job-”

“I know. God, Ronan, I’m pretty sure I know that better than you.”

Ronan glowers at him. “I’m going to go take care of it. Try not to fuck anything else up in the meantime.”

Adam is shaking his head before Ronan is even done speaking. “I can’t let you-”

“Shut up.” Ronan already has his phone out. “You can’t call, you sound nothing like him, and you can’t exactly pass as daddy. Everyone knows that happened to his father.” He winces, realization crashing on him in a split second. “Your father.”

Adam’s gaze is hot on his face. “They do.”

“So, they know me. I’ll tell them you’re sick. It’s not exactly impossible, with how hard you- he- you work. Fuck.”

“Right.” There is something off in Adam’s voice, and Ronan turns away so he doesn’t have to see what Adam’s face is doing.

“Go find the others, buy yourself something pretty,” Ronan tosses over his shoulder, already pulling up the number for the garage. He doesn’t listen to Adam’s reply.

After a quick talk with the owner of the garage and a much longer talk with the supervisor of the shit factory where Adam worked, Ronan finds them in the limited mensware department.

Blue and Gansey are bickering over shirt choices, and Adam looks like he would prefer to be doing almost anything else.

“Is Adam going to be the next top model?” Ronan drawls, watching as Blue holds a shirt up against Adam’s chest.

Blue ignores him completely. “I think the green one.”

Adam looks at the shirt in her hand. “I already said I don’t care.”

“I still think this one is best,” Gansey holds up a shirt in the same color as the one Blue held, except as a polo shirt, a miniature alligator stitched over the breast.

“I changed my mind,” Adam snaps. “I care a lot.” He grabs the shirt out of Blue’s hand, takes another three off the pile next to her and strides away.

Reluctantly, Ronan follows. It’s better than staying with the other two, who seem possessed by the ghost of consumerism past.

“I fear for their children,” Adam mutters. “I really do.”

So they’re not talking about the work thing. Good. Then Adam’s words process and he nearly trips over his own feet. “They have kids?”

Adam turns to grin at him. “Not yet.”

Ronan blanches. “God.”

“Right?” Adam’s voice is light, teasing. Ronan doesn’t know how to respond.

For a moment, his silence seems to throw Adam off. He peers at Ronan for a long minute, and his face falls minutely.

“What?” Ronan snaps.

“Nothing.” Adam shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

It’s definitely not nothing, but Ronan has never been in the habit of pressing Adam. He lets Adam turn away from him, giving Blue and Gansey time to catch up. Blue is in the middle of scolding Gansey for, as far as Ronan can tell, every fashion choice he has ever made. Ronan ducks his head to hide a smile. When he looks up, Adam is watching the three of them, his expression pained.

When Ronan meets his eyes, Adam only shakes his head.

“He misses his husband.” Noah appears at Ronan’s side and Ronan swears.

“Don’t do that!”

“Noah!” Adam looks delighted, clearly not having heard Noah’s remark. “You made it!”

Noah gives Ronan another long, significant look before he turns to Adam with a brilliant smile. “I found the perfect shirt, and I had to show you!”

He hold up what is clearly a girl’s shirt, one of the oversized ones that Blue would have loved after she had cut enough holes in it.

In a looping, feminine hand, it reads ‘I Have the Magic In Me.’ Adam laughs.

“It’s perfect,” he says. “I’ll take it.” He slings it over his arm, stacking it on top of the green shirt he had taken from Blue. His eyes are warm when he turns back to Noah. “Thanks, Noah.”

Noah beams. “This is hard for you too. Someone is on your side.”

“You can’t be on his side, Noah, you’re on our side,” Ronan points out. “Team Present, represent.”

Noah tilts his head, expression suddenly distant. “Am I?”

Ronan shoots Adam a confused look. Blue and Gansey are still squabbling, leaning too close into one another’s space. Adam doesn't say anything, just watches Noah. “Are you what?” Ronan asks, because apparently no one else will.

“Present?” Noah asks, otherwordly and vague. “Or am I the past too? Or am I the future?” His body seems to flicker, going momentarily transparent.

“Blue!” Ronan shouts. “We need a battery charge over here.” He hates it when Noah gets like this, all dead-eyed and vacant. At least he isn’t reenacting his own death again. That is always hard to explain to store employees.

Blue clutches Noah’s hand, and he fades back into full technicolor, smile blooming back on his face. “Sorry. Back now. I don’t see why I can’t be on both teams, Ronan.”

“So, you play for both teams then, Noah?” Gansey slings an arm around Noah’s shoulder.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Noah retorts. He leans up to peck Gansey on the cheek, which has the hilarious effect of making Gansey jump and look like he wanted to find a gentle way to turn Noah down.

“Calm down, ghost boy,” Ronan says. “Don’t make Gansey have to break your delicate heart.”

Noah throws a dramatic hand over his eyes. “I’m not sure I’ll survive.” He spreads his fingers so that his eyes peek out between them. “Oh, wait.”

Ronan snorts, and the rest of them laugh.

“Besides,” Noah says, and he drags Blue behind him when he steps closer to Adam, not releasing her hand, “Adam will always love me.”

Adam looks at him, face open and painful to look at. “Yeah, Noah. I’ll always love you.”

The moment shifts, going from jovial to serious in a breath. Adam clears his throat.

“Let’s get out of here.” He snatches a pair of jeans off a stack of them with only a cursory glance at the size.

“Thank god.” Ronan jokes, playing up his relief. It makes Adam’s mouth twitch up again and the expression is just as satisfying on this Adam as it is on Ronan’s.

“But-” Gansey casts a look back at the rows of overpriced shirts. Getting a chance to dress Adam better is probably some weird-ass old money fetish that Gansey has been suppressing for the past three years.

“What did I say?” Noah asks quietly. Not quietly enough though, Ronan can see Adam’s shoulders go tight.

“I can’t believe I had to meet up with your family in Gansey’s castoffs,” Adam tells Blue, pushing through it like he always does.. “They’ll never let me live it down.”

Ronan shrugs in response to Noah. “You’re the mind reader.”

“I doubt they were complaining,” Blue says to Adam, just as Gansey replies

“I think there were bigger concerns at the time.”

Ronan stays silent. It’s better than admitting he is a bit relieved to see Adam getting out of Gansey’s clothes. It makes something flare, hot and possessive in his chest every time he is reminded of it, and he hates it.

Noah presses closer to Blue, and doesn’t reply, to Ronan or to the others.

Adam drops his clothes on the register, lets the clothes get scanned by a bored looking cashier.

The problem occurs to all of them at the exact same time.

Adam goes pale, and his hands fly reflexively to his pockets. They’re empty, of course.

Ronan and Gansey exchange a look, while Blue stares at the floor. Noah hums absently to himself.

‘You ask him,’ Ronan tries to indicate with his eyes.

Gansey shakes his head. ‘No, you.’

Adam has his palms pressed to the low lip of the scanning belt. His spine is one long line of tension, and even with the distance between them, Ronan can see that the back of his neck has gone red.

The cashier reads off the total in a bored voice, oblivious to the strain in the air. Adam takes a slow, deep breath. Then he turns to Gansey, and he is smiling. It’s unnerving enough that Ronan has to fight the urge to step back.

“I seem to have left my wallet in another time zone,” Adam says slowly, and Ronan feels pretty tense himself. Adam only gets formal like that when he keeping a very tight hold on himself, hammering out every bit of Henrietta from his voice and speech patterns. “Mind spotting me a few bucks? I promise I’m good for it.”

Ganey’s and Ronan’s mouths drop open together. Ronan had honestly expected Adam to try and put all the clothes back and walk around in his boxers if it came to that.

“Of course.” Gansey fumbles his wallet out so fast that he drops it on the scanner. He darts a quick, nervous glance at Adam, like this minor disturbance will make Adam reconsider. Ronan is almost afraid to breathe. Blue is studiously pushing her cuticles back with her thumbnail. Noah has disappeared, and Ronan wishes he could as well.

Adam doesn’t say anything. His face is relaxed, and the tension is out of his shoulders, but Ronan can still see it in the corners of his mouth, the curl of his fingers. He has the sudden, insane urge to curl his own fingers around Adam’s. He thinks that this Adam might accept it- might welcome it.

He grabs the first candy he sees off the shelf instead. “Get me some,” he glances down, “snickers too.” He tosses a handful onto the belt and the cashier gives him a dirty look. He gives her one back.

“Ronan-” Adam starts.

“Shut up, Parrish.”

And, miracle of miracles, Adam actually does.

The cashier runs Gansey’s card, and Adam waits exactly the right amount of time to take the bag, like he was counting, like he had to stop himself from grabbing at it.

Ronan stops him long enough to fish the snickers out, and passes one to Gansey. Blue declines the other.

“I’m gonna-” Adam jerks a thumb at the instore bathroom. Gansey wrinkles his nose, because he’s the kind of person who gives a damn where he pisses, and Ronan just takes a large bite of his candy bar. He chews with his mouth open, just to see the face Adam makes.

When Adam emerges, he looks more settled, more comfortable. Ronan, at least, likes the look of him a lot more out of Gansey’s clothes. He hadn’t noticed before how big Adam’s biceps are now. It’s distracting.

He takes another bite of chocolate.

“Thanks,” Adam says.

Gansey gives him a painfully sincere smile. “Don’t mention it.”

Adam grips his elbow when he goes to turn away. He lowers his voice, and Ronan and Blue both fidget away to give them the semblance of privacy.

“I mean it, Gansey. I- younger me, I mean- well, and me now too, I guess. We never mean to hurt you. It’s never been about you.”

Shifted away, watching the cashiers scan and bag in endless repetition, Ronan can’t see the face that Gansey makes, but he can see Gansey pull away from the corner of his eye.

“You’ve made that clear.”

Adam exhales, one long, frustrated breath. “No, I mean. I’m sorry. If he- if I ever made you feel like it was something you were doing wrong. It was always me.” He laughs. “It’s still me. You’ve been more of a friend then I deserve.”

“That’s never been true, Adam.” Gansey sounds suspiciously choked. This is definitely not a conversation for a store checkout aisle.

“Well, you always were stupid that way,” Adam says, and Gansey laughs.

“God, shut up Parrish.” He slings an arm around Adam’s shoulders, and Ronan deems it safe to turn back.

Adam’s neck is flushed, and Gansey looks a bit damp around the eyes, but they’re both grinning. Ronan bumps his shoulders into Blue, or rather, he bumps his elbow into her shoulder because she is freakishly tiny, and together they follow Adam and Gansey out of the store.

Somewhat predictably, they all end up at Nino’s, Noah fading into the booth next to them like he was always there. Gansey pays for them all, and Adam doesn’t even twitch, which feels like more of a miracle then the actual time travel.

“I forgot how good this pizza is,” Adam says, practically shovelling the pizza into his mouth.

Blue gives him a deeply skeptical look. “The pizza from Nino’s? This pizza?” At Adam’s nod, she leans forward on her elbows. “This pizza right here? This is good pizza?”

Adam holds up a finger like an actual fucking adult while he chews and swallows and it’s the weirdest thing Ronan has ever seen him do, including the time he’s pretty sure Adam was sprouting leaves.

“I just missed it, that’s all.”

Noah’s eyes are wide. “We don’t come to Nino’s in the future?”

Adam’s mouth twists in a way that clearly means no, but he just shoves another piece of pizza in his mouth instead of answering. Rona rolls his eyes and takes his own slice.

Gansey takes a slice for himself, then gallantly gives Blue a piece without asking if she wants any. Ronan snorts and Blue makes a face like she’s actually about to start a fight over a rapidly cooling slice of pizza before Noah places a hand over hers.

She settles, and Ronan marvels. When he sneaks a glance at Gansey, Gansey’s face is a twisted combination of amusement and jealousy. Ronan raises his eyebrows at him. Gansey raises his back and jerks his head at Adam.

Ronan scowls and turns back to his pizza. Who cares what Gansey thinks anyway.

For a moment, it’s almost normal. Blue complains about Gwenllion, Gansey complains about his mother’s next political party, Noah makes a few bad jokes about being dead. Then, a silence falls in the empty space where Adam should be carefully not-complaining about having too many jobs and not enough time.

“So, how is married life treating you?” Blue asks. Blue has always been Ronan’s least favorite person.

Adam smiles enigmatically, and his foot brushes against Ronan’s under the table. Ronan jerks back and glares at him.

“It’s not so bad.”

Not so bad. That’s what he has to look forward to. Wonderful.

Then Adam smiles down at his plate and that’s it. Game over. Ronan has mostly managed to shove away any form of attraction to this Adam. It’s not his Adam after all. Not someone who knows, not someone he can understand. But he’s never seen his Adam smile like that, happy and lit up and absolutely breathtaking. It’s such a small smile, such a little thing. But it’s soft, and content and Oh. That’s what he has to look forward to.

“It’s pretty great, actually.” Adam continues to smile at his plate.

It’s awful. It’s dazzling. Ronan wants to run away from it, because he can’t imagine ever living the kind of life that would make Adam smile like that. He can’t imagine being part of a life that could make Adam smile like that. And he can imagine, all too clearly, the many ways in which it can be fucked up. He wants to run towards it, just for the heady rush of that smile.

Blue makes a gagging noise, but her eyes are soft. Gansey is beaming.

“Did Gansey cry at the wedding?” Noah asks. “I bet you Gansey cried at the wedding.”

Across from him, Blue goes rigid, and Ronan doesn’t miss the way that Adam’s pizza stutters on the way to his mouth. Then Adam’s grin is back, this one fake and perfectly sculpted for a lie.

“Lot’s of people cried at the wedding.” He nudges Ronan’s ankle again. “I’m pretty sure the priest himself cried. He was so relieved it was over with.”

“It can’t have been that bad,” Gansey protests.

Adam nods, face somber. “Groomzilla.”

“Which one of us?” Ronan asks, before he can stop himself. He doesn’t want to play into this, this future or joke or fantasy or whatever. He wants to keep pretending a blissful ignorance.

Adam gives him a sharp smile. “Guess.”

Ronan would really rather not. He takes a vicious bite of his pizza. The look Adam gives him is indulgent and amused, and Ronan hates him for it.

Gansey, ever the peacemaker, leans forward on the table. “What do you do, Adam?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.”

Blue and Noah both boo him playfully. Adam just shrugs. “Sorry, I’m not saying.”

“Then why did you tell us you were married?” Gansey asks, and it’s honest curiosity on his face.

Adam fidgets at his wedding ring. “I ah- I hadn’t meant to. But, I didn’t want to take the ring off. And, well. I’m not going to deny it.” His eyes glint sharply. “I’m not ever going to deny it, or make it something I need to hide.”

Ronan is very familiar with the feeling of being kicked in the gut. This feels a lot like that. In his need to be doing literally anything else, he shoves an entire slice into hous mouth and immediately regrets it.

“That’s sweet,” Noah says. Traitor.

“It’s not,” Adam says. “But thank you.”

Blue coughs awkwardly, and changes the subject back to Gwenllion’s weird habits. Ronan is more than fine with that.

Ronan sits caddy-corner to Adam, but for the rest of the evening, Adam will press his foot to Ronan’s. Ronan will jerk away and glare and Adam will give him a wide-eyes innocent look.

“I can feel it when you do that, Adam,” Gansey says mildly, after about the fourth time. “You keep hitting my foot.”

Blue chokes into her milkshake and Noah cackles. Adam tugs his foot away with a sheepish look.

“Stop picking on Ronan, Adam,” Noah says, and his tone is teasing but only just. At their surprised look he adds, “I’m Tem Present, right now.” The look he gives Ronan is sympathetic. Ronan hates that even more than the way that Adam has been looking at him. He aims a kick at Noah’s leg under the table and it goes straight through to the back of the booth. He swears and pulls back.

“Sorry,” Noah says, not sounding it.

“Me too,” Adam says. He actually does sound it, which surprises Ronan into looking at him. Adam meets his eyes head-on, like this Adam does so often and his Adam does so rarely.

“Like I give a shit.” Ronan crosses his arms over his chest.

“Well, I give a shit,” Blue chimes in. “Adam, I get it. You’re out of time and confused and what-the-hell ever, but you’re making Ronan uncomfortable and I’m pretty sure you’re doing it on purpose. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I draw the line at nonconsensual games of footsie under the table. Right directly in front of me, no less.”

“Shut up, maggot,” Ronan hisses, his face flaming. Noah defending him is bad enough. Blue doing it is almost unbearable.

“I’m really feeling the love here,” Adam jokes, but it comes out stiff and awkward.

Blue gives him a hard look, ice cold and unyielding. “I don’t give a damn if you’re feeling the love or not. I want my friend back. Our friend. And stop making Ronan look like he wants to crawl out of his skin.”

It’s not a bad description. Ronan is feeling a lot like that right now. He wonders how pissed Gansey would be if he just took a nosedive through the window and takes off down the street.

Adam taps his fingers against the table. His wedding ring clicks against the formica. Ronan focuses in on it, on the way that it catches the light, fluorescents glinting off the gold. “I’m not trying to trivialize this, Blue. I wasn’t trying to- I’m not trying to-” He glances at Ronan from under his eyelashes and it’s more of a devastating look than Ronan thinks he intends. “I just want to go home.”

“You don’t act like it.” Noah’s tone is even, observational, but the accusation hangs heavy in the air anyway.

“Would you like me to cry more? Tear my hair out? Rip Cabeswater apart until it send me back to my home? Because the thought has occurred to me,” Adam snarls, a flash of the Adam Ronan knows at his worst, angry and barely contained, then pulls himself in. He sucks in a long breath, lets it out slowly. “I can’t do that. I’m here for a reason.”

“Care to share?” It’s Gansey who says this, and that alone makes Ronan glances over with some surprise. Of them all them, Gansey has been the most impressed with future Adam, the most accepting of his excuses and evasions. Now, his voice is cool. If this is Gansey trying to protect Ronan as well, Ronan is going to have to leave. The window is looking more and more temping every second.

Adam cocks his head. “And if I say no? No, I don’t care to share. No, this is bigger than I can even begin to understand, let alone explain. That maybe you should all stay out of this, and let me do it on my own?”

Ronan feels his hands curl into fists, and next to Adam he can see Blue’s doing the same.

Gansey holds Adam’s gaze. It’s Adam who looks away. “Can I just- can we have a night? Just let me - I need to think about this. I don’t know what I need to do. If I could just talk with Cabeswater, maybe get some sleep.” His shoulders slump, and he looks more like their Adam then he has since he arrived.

Ronan wants to hit him. Not good enough, he wants to shout. Stop moping and get to work. Get our Adam back. But suddenly this is Adam too, not as much of a stranger as Ronan liked to pretend. Ronan knows him, knows the curl of his shoulders, the tension in his neck. Knows the way his lips turned down, unhappy and regretful. This is an Adam who seems to need their help as much as their Adam ever did, and seems just as reluctant to accept it as their Adam is.

Ronan meets Gansey’s gaze. Gansey sees it too.

“Tomorrow then. We could all use some sleep.” His voice cas that hint of command, the one Gansey never seems to know he has.

Adam turns to it in a way that Ronan has never seen him do before. He is, for a moment, entirely too like a soldier in response to a general. A knight to a king. Blue’s face reflects the same surprise and discomfort that Ronan feels.

“That sounds good,” she says. She digs her elbow into Adam’s ribs, and he smiles at her.

“Yeah. Let’s sleep on it.”

Ronan stifles a snort. As if any of them ever do much sleeping.

Gansey nudges Ronan until he slides out of the booth, turning the keys to the pig over in his hand. “Let’s go then. I’ll drop you off.”

 

* * *

 

Blue stretches, one long arc of spine and arms. “I think you’ve got wards mostly down. That’s going to be the most important thing, coming up.”

“Awesome,” Adam mutters. Protection spells will be crucial. Wonderful.

Blue reaches out and ruffles his hair, a ludicrous move given how much she has to reach up to do it.

“You’ll be fine. Just focus on what you want to keep safe.” Her eyes flick to the side, pointed. He follows her gaze to where Ronan is stretched out in the sunlight, arms tucked behind his head, eyes closed. Adam has seen Ronan sleep more often than he ever could have expected, but never like this, soft and relaxed. Unafraid. He feels a small smile curl at his mouth and he forces it down before he turns back to Blue, who is smirking at him.

“I wouldn’t be doing it for him.”

Blue rolls her eyes. “Obviously. You’d be doing it for you.”

Her tone is affectionate, but Adam feels her words like a punch to the gut. He feels exposed, raw in a way that Blue has always manage to elicit from him. Her words sound like an accusation. Obviously, she says. Because she knows that he never does anything for anyone else. Because he is, at heart, very deeply selfish. Every decision, every stubborn move, all to benefit himself and no one else. He hates it about himself, and he hates how she must know it. Obviously.

He knows how much his stubbornness has hurt Gansey, how much Gansey desperately wants to help him, how personally Gansey takes it when Adam refuses him. But ultimately, it’s never mattered as much as Adam’s own pride.

And he’s not blind, he knows how Ronan feels about him. He knows how he is starting to feel about Ronan. But none of that has ever managed to weigh up against his own ambition. He wants to leave, to get out of Henrietta, and Ronan is tied there. And Adam won’t let himself be bound along with him.

Maybe this other Adam, this future Adam that Ronan loves and Blue admires and who built a place like the Glens, maybe he can be selfless like that. But Adam isn’t sure that he has it in him. He’s not sure that he ever will.

“Adam.” Blue’s voice cuts into his thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you need to stop, right now.”

Blue has always been able to see right through him. Maybe that was what made him like her, once upon a time. He shrugs. “It’s nothing that isn’t true.”

Blue scoffs. “Save me from the stubbornness of men.” She reaches out with a booted toe and nudges Ronan, more gently than Adam would have expected. “Ronan, wake up. Talk to your husband.”

Ronan rolls his head and peers up at the both, eyes bleary. “Not my husband,” he mutters, and flings his arm over his eyes to block out the light. Adam hadn’t realized how late it’s gotten, and the setting sun cuts a bright path across his face.

Blue nudges him again, harder. “Fix Baby Adam then, I don’t have the patience for this.”

Ronan groans and sits up. “What now?”

“Fuck if I know. I’m heading back to the house, you deal with him.”

She stomps off out of the clearing, her heavy shoes making a clear path through the undergrowth.

Ronan peers up at Adam. “What’s your deal?”

Adam scowls at him. “There’s no deal.”

“Sure looks like a deal.”

“Fuck off.” Adam turns away, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ah.” Ronan’s voice is far too knowing, and Adam hates it. If Blue can make his feel exposed in any timeline, the effect that this Ronan has on him is so much worse. “It’s that deal.”

“There is no deal!” Adam snaps.

Ronan pushes himself to his feet. “Parrish, there is always a fucking deal with you.”

For a moment they stand there, staring at one another. Then Ronan sighs, running a hand over the back of his in a familiar gesture that makes Adam miss his own Ronan in a way that hurts, sharp and bitter.

He doesn’t want to miss Ronan. He doesn’t want to want Ronan. He doesn’t want anything to do with Ronan.

“Come on.” Ronan jerks his head towards the direction that Blue had gone in. “We can talk about this when you have your head out of your ass.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Adam snaps. He only means them talking, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, he realizes how they would be interpreted. He presses his lips together.

Ronan snorts. “At least you’re honest about it.”

Adam clenches his hands into fists. He wants to say that he is always honest with Ronan. It’s not true. He’s probably more honest with Ronan than he is with anyone else, but that means nothing. He sometimes feels as though he is nothing but lies and pretense and a carefully crafted facade of everything he wants to be. Unknowable.

He feels Ronan’s fingers brush against his, soft enough that it could almost be an accident. “Do we need to talk about this now?” Ronan asks. “Because I would really like some serious booze before we get into your many, many issues.”

“Shut the hell up,” Adam replies. There isn’t any venom in it.

Ronan shrugs, easy and affable. “Whatever.” His hands brush against Adam’s again. Adam doesn't pull away.

The trees seem to part before them, and there is a warm breeze on the air. The Glens feels like the very best of Cabeswater, the sunlit moments and the cool water and Ronan’s mother singing softly to herself.

“Did we really make this place?” Adam asks.

Ronan stops dead. “Son of a bitch.”

“Excuse me,” Adam starts, all drawling sarcasm, defense at the ready before Ronan can even start. Then he follows Ronan’s gaze.

There is a fantastically unattractive vintage car in the long driveway leading up to Ronan’s house (his and Ronan’s house, and thought alone makes his brain recoil.) It’s a ‘66 mustang, if Adam knows his cars, and it might be beautiful if it wasn’t such a lurid shade of green.

It’s not the Pig, but it is unmistakably a Gansey car.

“I told him not to come,” Ronan mutters, dropping Adam’s hand.

“Why? I want to see him.” He wants, needs, to be sure that he really is alive.

Ronan closes his eyes. “Yeah, that’s part of the problem.” He sets off across the broad stretch of grass between them and the driveway. “Let’s get this over with.”

Adam feels excitement rising in him. Who is Gansey now? Who has he become? How had he survived whatever horrible fate Blue’s family had foreseen for him?

He hisses when his bare feet make contact with the hot asphalt of the driveway. It’s late enough in the day that the ground is scalding underfoot, heated under the unrelenting sunlight of a Virginia summer. He’s glad that he and Ronan aren’t anywhere near pretentious enough to have the kind of driveway lined with white stones and crushed shells like the Gansey’s have, but even this is painful on his feet.

Ronan glances back at him. A mischievous look crosses his face, the kind that always spells danger. Then he swoops, dropping down so fast the Adam’s vision blurs. And then Ronan has a shoulder in Adam’s stomach and an arm around the back of his knees.

Adam shrieks, and beats on Ronan’s back as Ronan straightens with a grunt. “God, Parrish, how are you this heavy? You never fucking ate anything in high school.”

“Put me down!”

He can’t see Ronan’s face, but he can hear the grin in his voice. “Nope.”

“I swear to god, Lynch, if you don’t put me down-”

“You’ll what? Glare at me? I’m terrified.”

“I will light you on fire!” Adam threatens.

Ronan gives his ankle a sympathetic pat. “I’m sure Blue would be very impressed that you could manage that.”

“Put me down!” Adam shouts.

“I’ll put you down when we reach the house. You’re the fucking moron who didn’t wear any clothes.”

Adam knows what Ronan sounds like when he’s set on something. Short of actually setting Ronan on fire, which he is fairly certain he can’t do yet, there is no way Ronan is setting him down. He lets himself relax in Ronan’s hold. The view isn’t terrible.

“I heard shouting.” Blue’s voice comes from the direction of the house. She doesn’t sound surprised or concerned. More resigned, which Adam supposes is fair.

“Is that Adam? Have Adam’s legs always been that skinny?” It is unmistakably Gansey, and Adam tries to twist himself around to get a better look at him. Ronan swears, and tightens his hold.

“Stop squirming, Parrish, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Seriously, are they feeding him in the past?” Gansey asks, and Adam feels his face flush. He hasn’t forgotten Gansey’s own unique brand of concerned rudeness, but he had harbored the hope that Gansey would have grown out it at almost 30.

“I can hear you!” Adam shouts. Ronan laughs.

“Why are you carrying him?” Gansey asks.

“Because he’s an asshole!” Adam yells, and the same time Ronan says

“Because Parrish has delicate princess feet.”

“Fuck you.”

Ronan laughs again, and Adam feels dizzy as he is suddenly spinning, before Ronan drops him irreverently on the porch. It’s not a far drop, with Ronan still standing below the first step, but it still drives the air from his lungs.

“Oops.” Ronan smirks at him.

“Why didn’t you give him any clothes?” Gansey is frowning at Ronan in parental disapproval, and Adam gets his first real look at him. The breath catches in his lungs. He can hear Ronan protesting Adam’s stubborness, but the words sound muffled, as if they come from a long distance. For once, he can’t blame it on his bad ear.

Gansey looks much older than he should, older than Blue or Ronan by years and years. The lines of age are carved deep his face, silver hair at his temples and threading through the back of his hair. Worst of all, he has a jagged scar that cuts across his face, spreading from his lower lower jaw on the left, over his cheek bone and almost reaching his eye.

When he looks down at Adam and offers him a hand though, the look is all Gansey. His eyes are warm, and his hand is strong. “Frightful, isn’t it?” he gestures at his face. “I’m afraid I can’t rely on my boyish good looks anymore.”

“Doesn’t stop you from trying,” Blue replies, leaning up to press a kiss to his unmarked cheek. So they kiss now. Blue can kiss him. That is comforting somehow. Soothing. They both deserve it.

“I’ve thought about a mask,” Gansey says, and his tone is jovial. “Something that says ‘phantom of the opera.’ What do you think?”

Gansey is trying to get him to relax, Adam realizes. Trying to comfort him. It’s so utterly Gansey. Adam hopes, desperately, that his own face hadn’t revealed his shock, his horror. He can’t imagine what could have happened to make Ganey like this, older than his years and terribly scarred.

Adam tries to clear his face of expression. “Please don’t.” It’s not his best comeback, but the relieved smile that sweeps across Gansey’s face is worth it. It’s still Gansey’s charming smile, the one that made teachers and waitresses and all their classmates hang on his every word. The one that Adam had briefly, secretly, had a bit of a crush on. He wonders if any of them in this strange, intimate future know that. He hopes not.

“Yes, that’s what future you says as well. Well, perhaps a few more choice words about my cognitive functions, but that is the gist of it.”

Adam snorts. “I bet.”

Gansey’s smile brightens impossibley. “There he is! There’s our Adam!” He reaches out and sweeps Adam into a hug. “I can’t believe how young you are!”

Adam stiffens at the sudden contact. His own Gansey, all of his friends back home, know better than to touch him unexpectedly. He still doesn’t like hugs. But this Gansey must have forgotten, might not realize how recently Adam got away from his father. Gansey doesn’t know. He only wants to show affection in his overexubberent, Gansey way. Adam lets out a breath and makes himself relax, bringing his arms up around Gansey’s shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ronan says. “Come on, you’re smothering the kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Adam protests as Gansey let’s him go. He tries to hide his relief.

“You really, really are,” Blue says. “But that’s ok. We like you anyway. Come on in, we ordered a pizza.”

Adam is never going to say no to pizza.

“No, please,” Ronan mutters, “let yourself in. Order food yourself food, get comfortable.”

“I find it hard to believe that this isn’t a regular occurrence,” Adam says as they follow Blue and Gansey. Gansey has a noticeable limp, and Adam bites his lip against the flood of questions.

“Sometimes we go to their house instead.” Ronan’s mouth quirks up as he says it, and Adam marvels at how easily smiles come to his face.

A question bubbling up out of him before he can stop it, something that has been nagging at him all day, and can’t be pushed aside now that Gansey and Blue are both with them. Their group almost complete. “And Noah?”

Ronan stops. Ahead of him, Blue and Gansey have also gone still.

“Noah is,” Blue hesitates, “complicated.”

“Complicated,” Adam repeats. “More then when we first learned he was dead?”

Gansey flinches, and Adam’s gaze is drawn to him. “He’s not- even before the, the,” he stops, scrambling for a word like Adam has never seen him do before. He makes an aborted gesture, almost indicating his face, then letting his hand drop back to his side.

“The war,” Ronan says.

“Even before the third sleeper,” Gansey continues, “he was fading.”

Adam swallows. “So he’s gone?”

The others all exchange a look. It’s Blue who speaks first.

“Not always?” It comes out like a question.

Adam feels his patience waning, and he jumps when Ronan puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’s sometimes at Cabeswater. He’s sometimes at the Glens.”

“He sometimes like to scare the fuck out of my in my bedroom mirror,” Blue says, and there is a hint of a smile in her voice.

“Basically, he’s haunting us,” Gansey says. “In a more traditional sense than before.”

“Right,” Adam says. Ganey lives, but Noah is gone. Nothing comes for free.

The door ringing makes him jump.

“That’s the pizza,” Blue says. “I got it this time.”

Adam follows her out of the room with his eyes and tries to blink back tears.

“Hey,” Gansey nods to a couch, and sinks down onto it. Adam follows him, sitting down blindly. “I offered, once, to ask Glendower to bring him back. As our favor. Noah didn’t want that. He never wanted that. I’m going to need you to remind me of that, afterwards. The past me, I mean.” He smile, a sardonic twist of his mouth. “I’m afraid that I don’t handle it particularly well.”

“Right,” Adam says weakly.

“Noah is happier where he is now,” Gansey adds.

“I fucking hate when people say that,” Ronan says. He’s sprawled across the other couch, booted foot propped up on the cushions. The sight is strangely comforting, in the wake on information that leaves him reeling. This is a house to live in, not a place to be careful where to sit. “It’s bullshit. He’s not happier, he’s fucking dead.”

“God, Ronan.” Blue comes in and drops the pizza down on the coffee table. “Can you manage to not ruin things for just 5 seconds?”

“Just because Noah wanted it doesn’t mean he’s happier. It fucking sucks, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”

“He’s not spouting useless platitudes, Ronan. He literally asked Noah. Do you think Noah liked going in and out like he was at the end? That he liked being there about half the time, at most? Somedays barely even remembering his own name?”

“At least he was around. At least he was here.”

Adam bites his lip, unsure how to deal with this. He stands, and forces himself down by Ronan’s head, making Ronan have to sit up to make room for him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gansey taking Blue’s hand, pressing it to his lips. Is this how they get through tragedy- tethered to one another when the grief makes them lash out? Holding on to another person when they can’t stand on their own? It’s terrifying.

He clenches his hand on Ronan’s instead of dwell on it. “Hey.”

Ronan turns to him, and his eyes are dark. He’s never looked so much like Adam’s Ronan. It’s the pain lines on his face, and it makes Adam sick thinking that this is how his Ronan always looks. Tired, drawn, agonized.

“Hey,” Ronan replies, soft.

“I don’t know what happened. But it wasn’t your fault.”

This time, Ronan’s laugh is a familiar thing, dark and bitter. Adam doesn’t flinch, because he has never flinched from Ronan, but he wants to. “Don’t be such a cliche. You weren’t even there.”

“I don’t need to be. I know you. I know that you would die for any one of us.” He smiles. “You’re stupid like that.”

Ronan tips over, leaning so that his head is dropped down on Adam’s shoulder. “Don’t think that this means we aren’t going to talk about your martyr complex.”

Adam jostles his shoulder. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“Ha.” Rona turns and presses his face into the cotton of Adam’s shirt. He takes a slow, deep breath. Adam lets him, and feels so overwhelmed with affection that he wants to burst from it. He had thought that anything with Ronan would be fire and explosions and a consuming terrible wonderful something. He hadn’t thought it could be like this.

Then Ronan shoves off of Adam. “So, are we going to eat this fucking pizza, or what?”

It takes them less than twenty minutes to finish off the entire pizza, and Adam gives all of them shit for how little they eat. In his timeline, they four of them could eat two full pizzas between them. He pretends not to notice Gansey nudging more food in his direction, apparently convinced that Adam hasn’t been eating in his own timeline.

He isn’t entirely wrong, so Adam takes the offered food.

It takes them less than two hours to finish the two bottle of wine that Blue unearths from a low cabinet. Apparently they are all wine drinkers now, and Adam utterly despairs of them all. They are becoming every inch of the rich aristocrats he’s always both hated and envied.

The three of them tell stories, awkwardly cut short to avoid telling him too much, or dissolving into private jokes that he doesn’t understand, and he desperately wants the life that this other Adam has.

And then, it gets too late to ignore the slight logistical problem that Adam pushed out of his thoughts. The house- he refuses to call it the Glens- is big, bigger than Adam had ever realistically expected a house of his to be. But it is not equipped with an overabundance of bedrooms.

The house itself has four. The first is the master bedroom, the one that Adam and Ronan share, with it’s wide bay windows and breezy curtains and natural light. The one that is all too like what Adam has always wanted a bedroom to be, but so much of Ronan in the design. The one that is almost too intimate to bear.

And there is the guest bedroom, that a slightly drunk Blue and a heavily drunk Gansey have already rolled themselves into. Adam had endured all their jokes about underage drinking and poured himself nothing but water. Ronan had stopped after one glass of wine, and Adam had the sneaking suspicion that it was due to him.

The third bedroom has been converted into Adam’s office. He still hasn’t figured out what, exactly, his future self does, but it apparently requires a large, heavy desk and a room lined with book shelves.

The fourth bedroom was heavy with paint fumes and drop cloths and Ronan refused to tell him what they had been renovating for.

The end result is that Adam will have to sleep on one of the many couches scattered throughout the house, the one in the entertainment room looking the most promising, or he will have to sleep with Ronan. In the bed they share in the future. As a married couple.

Right.

Adam bites his lip. “So, maybe I should-”

Ronan rolls his eyes.” Get in the bed, Parrish.”

Adam eyes the rumpled sheets, the way the left hand bedside is stacked with a heavy book and the one on the right holds Ronan’s reading glasses. It’s a lived in space, domestic in a way that he has never known.

In a way he desperately wants.

He pushes the thought away. He doesn’t want this life. Not really. He’s getting distracted by stupid things. His brain flashes over the heavy affection on Ronan’s face when he thinks Adam isn’t looking, the way that the sun shines through the windows in this house. The way that Ronan had slid him the peanut butter for his pancakes, made just to his tastes.

“No thanks.” This life is a beautiful lie, and he wants bigger things. Things he can’t have if he gets pulled into Ronan’s orbit. “The couch looks comfortable.”

“For god’s sake.” Exasperation is a familiar sound in Ronan’s voice. “If I promise not to molest you, will you sleep?”

Adam flushes. “I didn’t think that.”

Ronan snorts. “Right.”

When Adam doesn’t reply, Ronan studies his face. “Ok, fine. So you don’t think I’ll compromise your maidenly virtue. What’s the issue. I know we’ve shared before, even in your timeline.”

Adam shrugs a shoulder. There are so many thoughts in his head, things that he can’t voice,things he never wants Ronan to hear. Never wants anyone to hear. If he lets himself get comfortable in this life, in this bed, in this house he shares with Ronan, then he will never want to leave. And he can’t risk that.

Then he goes pale. “Do you think my Ronan is sharing his bed?”

He doesn’t know why the thought bothers him so much but it does. He doesn’t want Ronan to have anything to do with his future self. He doesn’t want Ronan to ever meet this perfect version of him, who can do magic and talk about his feelings and let himself be known. Let himself be loved.

Does his Ronan prefer that Adam? A perfect version of him, strong and loving. Would he kiss him, touch him, want him? Would that Adam let him? They could be at St. Agnes at that moment, or at Monmouth, tumbled down onto rucked up sheets. Ronan, eyes dark and intense like he sometimes go when he thought Adam wasn’t watching, pressing kisses into the other Adam’s skin.

Adam’s hands curl into fists.

Ronin’s eyebrows shoot up, watching him closely. “Your Ronan, is it?”

“Fuck off. You know what I mean.”

A slow smirk spreads across Ronan’s face. “I think it’s more likely that Adam is sharing his bed. You always did prefer to sleep at St. Anges. Or should I say, he always preferred?”

Adam flushes, the rush of blood making him dizzy after it had left him so quickly before. Future Adam always preferred to sleep at St. Agnes. With Ronan.

“Does that bother you, Parrish?” Ronan takes a step forward, as slow and sinuous as a tiger. Adam takes a step back.

“Why should I care?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me. After all, it’s your Ronan, isn’t it?” Another step.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He’s on the defensive. He hates being on the defensive. He hardly ever feels like that with Ronan, who never shirks from him and who he has never shirked from. They are matched, the two of them, in temperament and rage and an unrelenting refusal to back down.

But he and this Ronan are not matched. This Ronan is armed with the knowledge of everything Adam is. And it’s terrifying.

“I think you did.” Ronan is still advancing. The light is high in his eyes, and Adam can’t look away. He can’t stop himself from retreating. “Is this possessiveness? Jealousy?” His lips curl into a cruel smile. “Ownership?”

“No.” The word comes out weak.

“You know that he likes you, don’t you?” Ronan says. With his next step, Adam is backed against the wall. His heart is racing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But you don’t like the thought of him with anyone else. Is that actual feelings talking? Or is that just your own ego?”

Adam doesn’t say anything, just stares back. He’s not going to look away.

“Except, of course, that would require you have actual feelings. Which is never going to happen.” Ronan’s voice is low, almost a whisper.

“I have fucking feelings, you asshole,” Adam replies, shoving forwards. Ronan pushes him back, pinning him to the wall.

“Maybe your Ronan,” he sneers the words, “would prefer my Adam. Maybe that’s what scares you. You don’t want Ronan, but you can’t stand the idea that he could like anyone else. Because what else could feed your selfish, childish ego?”

It’s everything that Adam has ever thought, and to have Ronan say it aloud, his bright eyes so close, is almost unbearable. “You’re wrong.”

“About what?”

Adam expects Ronan to go on, but he doesn’t. He just stares, blue eyes boring into Adam’s, waiting for an answer. Adam doesn’t have one.

“It’s not ego.” Adam hates himself so much he can hardly breathe it. It is ego. It’s always been about his ego. And Ronan is right. It’s awful and selfish and one of the worst things he’s ever done. And the worst part. The most secret, shameful part. It’s not just that he’s selfish enough to want Ronan to want him. It’s that sometimes, when he can’t push it away, he wants Ronan too. But he’s too selfish to give up his ambitions for it. And he’s too selfish to want Ronan to move on.

Ronan leans in close, well into Adam’s space, breath ghosting over his lips. “Liar.”

Adam’s gut is churning with anger and disgust and helplessness, all of it directed at himself. And Ronan, who has always known him more than Adam would like to admit. And he sees through him, even now.

Adam crashes forward, pressing his lips against Ronan’s. He wants, so badly, to prove him wrong. He wants, just for a second, to be worthy of his love. Of whatever it is that makes Ronan, any Ronan, look at him with such affection. He wants Ronan to know that it’s not ego. That sometimes, in his darkest moments, it might just be love. A selfish, self-centered love, but love nonetheless.

For a moment, they are suspended in time. His lips pressed against Ronan’s, awkward and unsure. This Ronan smells so much like his Ronan. Adam is suddenly, terrible, hit with homesickness. He wants his Ronan. He can’t have him.

He wraps his arms around Rona’s neck, pulling him closer. Ronan is still frozen, but slowly, he melts. Adam doesn’t know what he’s doing. His eyes are clenched shut, and he doesn’t dare move.

Then Ronan starts to return the kiss. It’s not gentle. It’s what Adam always expected Ronan to kiss like, possessive and aggressive and perfect. He can feel Ronan’s hands on his waist, the curl of Ronan’s hair under his fingers. But everything else is lost in the buzzing of his ears, the way that Ronan’s lips slide against his.

When Ronan bites at his lip, Adam groans. The sound jolts through them both, and Ronan yanks away.

“What the actual fuck, Adam?” Ronan demands. His mouth is kiss-red, his face flushed. His eyes are so very blue. It’s the first time this Ronan has called him Adam.

Adam turns on his heel and runs.


	4. Chapter 4

Monmouth manufacturing is never quiet. It’s one of the things that Ronan likes about it- a nice change after the unrelenting quiet of the Barns after his father died. After the Barns went to sleep and Ronan was left in a ghost house with no way to understand what was happening.

There is always the hum of machinery, the faint sound of the street outside. He can hear Gansey moving around at all hours, can hear the wind against the brick exterior and through the trees. Sometimes, the trees speak to him.

There is always the rustle of Chainsaw, flying around the place and going through his shit. When he is really unsettled, she will bring him shiny, useless toys or dead mice and screech at him until he strokes a hand down her glossy back.

Tonight, it feels more like a burden than a comfort. Noah is absent, as he is more often than not these days. Some days, Ronan toys with the idea of insisting that Blue come move in with them, just to get Noah back on a more permanent basis. It’s fun to think about the color Gansey would go at the suggestion too.

Sometimes, he thinks about it more seriously. Not just for Noah- for them all. He likes Blue, sometimes in spite of himself. She adds something, completes something. It would be like getting the whole group together. With Blue in the picture, they might be able to get Adam, and it would be perfect. (He knows bettter than that.)

Ronan can’t sleep. It’s only been a single day with future Adam, and it feels like a lifetime. He isn’t sure what feels more like a betrayal- the times when he likes the future Adam, or the times that he can’t stand him.

Most of the time, Ronan wants to punch him in his smug, arrogant face. But then, he wants to punch most people in the face. It doesn’t set Adam apart.

He doesn’t even like future Adam, not really. He is too much- well. Too much everything, really. Too confident, too cool, too charming. He’s all polished edges and easy smiles and everything that Ronan has always hated in the adults in his life.  He’s too cocky, too arrogant. Too confident in his own ability to play them and manipulate them.

Worse, he is everything that Ronan knows Adam wants to be- and everything that Adam currently hates. Ronan hates him for what feels like theft. He knows, logically, that this is Adam. This is his Adam, even, just aged. He isn’t a stranger, not someone who has deprived Adam of something by virtue of existence. And yet- and yet it feels like that. This Adam gets to be happy and well-rested and sure of himself.

Ronan hates that this Adam has it while his own is always feeling inadequate, buried under a weight he can barely carry. He doesn’t want this Adam, this stranger to have them. He wants his Adam to have them, to wear that smile and be that happy.

It’s irrational and he knows it, and he hates that too.

He wishes that he could pretend it was just about Adam though. His Adam.

Blue was right. Ronan knows that Adam has been messing with him. Flirting with him. He isn’t sure what to call it. It sets his teeth on edge, makes hair rise on the back of his neck. And it makes his heart race. That feels like a betrayal as well. This isn’t his Adam, just the way he carries himself is enough to see that. But Ronan can’t stop himself from tracing the line of Adam’s spine with his eyes, following the elegant movement of his hands.

He’s faced with a stranger who knows everything about him, and he hates it.

Ronan can’t imagine what his Adam must be thinking, alone in the future. If this Adam is showing flashes of desperation, of fear, what must his Adam be going through. Ronan is freaking out enough and he can sleep in his own bed, be surrounded by his own friends. He has the homefield advantage,

But Adam is alone, in an unfamiliar time and place. Ronan isn’t even sure if they still live in Virginia, or if the two of them have settled somewhere else. New York, or maybe Boston. Adam would probably like Boston.

Ronan pushes himself off of the bed. Chainsaw, settled on his chest, squaks at him, hitting him deliberately with her wings as she takes flight.

Predictably, Gansey is awake. He’s moved on to making a scale model of Cabeswater, extended past the border of the miniature Henrietta. The sight of it sets Ronan on edge, for no reason he can strictly place.

“You’re awake.” Gansey doesn’t sound surprised either.

“It was a big day.”

Gansey nods, quietly afixing glue to some green pipe cleaners. He could buy perfect tree recreations in exact scaled sizes and breeds if he wanted. But then, Gasney doesn’t want things that come easy. Ronan can relate.

“What do you think of him?” Gansey asks, faux casual. He doesn’t look up.

“He’s an asshole.”

Gansey’s mouth twitches. “I seem to attract them.”

“Screw you,” Ronan says amiably. “I’m a fucking peach.”

“Yeah, you’re a real ray of sunshine,” Gansey replies. He glues a tiny base onto an indecipherable recreation out of toothpicks and sets it down, still smiling. Ronan watches him do it, leaning back on his hands. “Seriously though.”

“Seriously,” Ronan replies. “He’s an asshole.”

Gansey snorts. “Adam has always been a bit of an asshole. It’s never bothered you before.” He gives Ronan a sidelong look. “In fact, according to Jane, it’s rather the opposite.”

“What the fuck does she know,” Ronan snaps.

Gansey sets down his tools and fixes Ronan with his best Gansey-stare. It’s a good one. “Ronan, Adam from the future is here, and he is wearing your wedding ring. I think the ship where I believe any of your denial has sailed.”

“He could be lying,” Ronan protests unconvincingly.

Gansey gives him a thoroughly unimpressed look and picks his glue back up. “That, and he keeps looking at you like he wants to squish you.”

Ronan makes a face. “Squish me? Isn’t that a bad thing? I’m not a bug.”

“You’re thinking of squash. You squash bugs. You squish puppies and kittens and small children. Cute things.”

“I’m starting to think I should prevent your access to cute things.”

“It’s a thing!” Gansey protests. “Jane uses the term all the time.”

That explains a few things. “It might be a girl thing,” Ronan says dubiously. “Men don’t squish things. We squash things. Manly things.”

Gansey rolls his eyes, so expansively that Ronan can see if even with Gansey angled mostly away from him. “Well, Adam definitely wants to squish you. He wants to pinch your cheeks and coo over you. He wants to put you in a little jar and take you home with him.”

Ronan frowns at him. “Is he a serial killer now?”

Gansey chucks a wadded up paper towel at him. “You know what I mean.”

“I promise, I really don’t.”

“He thinks you’re adorable. Whenever you snap at him, he makes this face like,” Gansey twists his face up like he’s struggling to take a shit, “like you’re the cutest thing he’s ever seen.”

“Shut up, he does not.”

“He really, really does.”

“He does not!” This time it comes out more forcefully than Ronan intended, breaking through the playful atmosphere like a bomb going off. Gansey carefully puts down the tree he was working on and studies him in silence.

“I don’t mind, you know,” Gansey says softly. “About you and him.”

“There is no me and him,” Ronan snaps.

“I just- you could have come to me about this.”

“There’s nothing, Gansey. It’s nothing.”

Gansey holds his eyes for a long time. “It’s not nothing, Ronan.”

Ronan drops back onto the ground, spreading his arms wide. He leaves his feet planted, conscious of the model of Henrietta just out of reach of his toes. “It’s not nothing,” he agrees.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me-”

Ronan snorts, cutting him off. “Don’t make this about you, Gansey.”

His eyes are on the ceiling, but he can picture it perfectly, Gansey’s face flooding with surprise, then hurt.

“I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t not tell you.”

“You sure didn’t tell me,” Gansey snaps. Ronan’s mouth twists into a bitter smile. This is the only thing he’s good at. Pushing and pushing until something snaps.

“Like you didn’t tell me about you and Blue?” he asks. Her name feels strange on his tongue. “Or did you think I missed your little midnight phone calls?”

He can see Gansey flinch from the corner of his eyes, then rally. “How could I not, when you’re never here anymore? You’re always out somewhere. Getting drunk or into fights or with Adam.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous?” Ronan spits. “You must have loved having the nights to yourself. All nice and cozy, on the phone with your girlfriend.’

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

Ronan smiles at the ceiling, sharp. He feels like there should be blood on his teeth, cracked on his knuckles. “Does Adam know that?”

Gansey draws in a breath, so short it sounds painful. “Adam doesn’t know anything.”

Ronan sits up to stare at him. “Like how I didn’t know anything?”

Gansey swallows. “We aren’t doing anything.”

“I did not have sex with that woman,” Ronan drawls. Gansey opens his mouth and Ronan cuts him off. “You know that doesn’t matter, Gansey.”

“I know,” Gansey says, quiet. “We’re probably fooling ourselves more than you guys, at this point.”

“Are you really not-”

“It’s not an option,” Gansey says, like that makes any fucking sense. “And we keep acting like if we don’t talk about it, if we pretend it’s not happeing, then it won’t be real.” He laughs, a hollow sound that hits Ronan in the stomach like a punch. “It’s not working.”

Ronan doesn't know what to say to that. He sinks back to the floor, pillowing his head on his hands. “I know the feeling.“ He hesitates. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Adam.”

“Talking about it makes it real,” Gansey replies. Ronan feels a touch on his ankle, Gansey trying to anchor them with touch. Then Gansey is carefully extracting himself from Henrietta and lies down next to Ronan. “How do you think he’s doing?”

“Hm?”

“Adam. Our Adam.”

Ronan frowns up at the ceiling. “It’s his worst nightmare.”

Gansey rolls his head over to look at him. “You think?”

“It’s a world he doesn’t know, surrounded by people who know him better than he knows them. He’s going to hate that.”

“It could be worse,” Gansey says, trying for reassuring.

“Yeah. He could be married to me. Oh, wait.”

Gansey jostles their shoulders together. “You’re not that bad.”

“Thanks, Dick.”

“I am worried about him though,” Gansey says.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Not the marriage thing. I’m sure you’re a wonderful husband.” He says it so matterafact, so honestly, that it takes the breath from Ronan’s lungs. “I only mean, he is all alone.”

He likes it that way, Ronan almost says, but he bites it back. It’s not true, and he knows it. Besides, it’s the wrong thing to say to Gansey. “He’s been alone before.”

“Fuck that,” Gansey snarls, unexpectedly fierce. Ronan leans up on his elbows to look at him. “He shouldn’t have to be. We’re friends, aren’t we? We’re supposed to help one another.”

“I don’t think that applies to magical time travel scenarios,” Ronan says.

“It should,” Gansey replies, jaw jutting stubbornly.

Ronan rolls his eyes and drops back down. “You’re right, it should.” He means to say it sarcastically, but he means it. They’re a team, a family. They should look after each other.

“They’ll look after him,” Noah says. Gansey shrieks, and Ronan’s leg kicks out in reflex and demolishes the library.

“God dammit, Noah!” Ronan roars, trying to calm his racing heart. Chainsaw, drawn in by his shout, settles on his shoulder and lets out a caw at Noah.

Noah sits on Gnasey’s bed, looking calm and unruffled. “I didn’t want to interrupt earlier.”

“You could knock!”

Noah just looks at him incredulously, and Ronan silently concedes the point.

“I only want to tell you that he will be fine.” Noah tucks his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs. “We’ll look after him. We’re family.”

“Of course,” Gansey says.

Ronan just gives Noah a suspicious look. “Have you been listening this whole time?”

Noah tries to look innocent. It mostly works, but that’s more an advantage of his face than actual proof. “No?”

“Noah,” Ronan growls.

“I can’t help it!” Noah lowers his voice, a haunted house employee imitation of spooky. “I am all around you.”

Ronan is too far away to shove Noah off the bed, but he really wants to. He thinks very, very hard about throwing Noah out the window again and grins when Noah makes a protesting sound.

“I only wanted to help!”

“Thank you, Noah,” Gansey says. “You’re right.”

“He’ll still hate it,” Ronan says. “Probably more, if they’re all looking out for him.”

“We,” Gansey corrects.

“What?”

“We will be looking out for him. It’s still us.”

Ronan’s mouth twitches up into a smile. “I don’t think that will matter much.”

Gansey laughs. “No, probably not.”

“Adam is stubborn,” Noah agrees, voice heavy with affection.

“A total asshole,” Ronan says, and he can hear the same affectionate tone in his own voice.

Gansey nudges his shoulder again, and Ronan nudges back. He feels a cold weight on his other side, and suddenly Noah is there, stretched out next to him. The floor shouldn’t be quite clear enough to accommodate the three of them, stretched out between Gansey’s books and the model of Henrietta, but Noah doesn’t take up as much space as he should.

“I can see the stars,” Noah says dreamily, and takes Ronan’s hand. Ronan shivers, Noah is freezing, but he doesn’t pull away. All he can see is high ceilings and exposed brick, but he doesn’t doubt that Noah is seeing the open sky.

“We should paint the ceiling,” Gansey says thoughtfully. “I’d like to see them too.”

Ronan eyes the exposed support beams dubiously. “How.”

“I’ll think of something.”

Ronan grins. He takes Gansey’s hand as well and tries to pretend that he did no such thing. He’s sure that Gansey will make it work.

–

The front door is locked when Adam reaches it. He isn’t sure where he means to go, what he means to do, but he needs to get out. He needs to get away from Ronan’s dark eyes, heavy lidded and focused entirely on Adam.

The entire house feels too hot, stuffy and crowded. He needs the fresh air and the open sky and anything but another second in this house that is and is not his.

He unlocks the door, pulls it open. It’s hard, harder than it should be. Then it yanks out of his hand, and Adam feels a chill spread over his skin. The door slams closed, and the deadbolt slides home with an echoing click.

“Stay.”

It is, unmistakably, Noah’s voice. Adam whips around. “Noah?”

His hand goes numb, like dunking it into a sudden bucket of ice water. He can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, but he gets the unshakable impression that Noah is trying to take his hand. Adam’s eyes feel wet. He blinks it away.

“Stay,” Noah says again, and then the presence, the whatever it is that Adam is feeling, fades  away.  

Adam staggers to the sofa and collapses onto it. His hands are shaking.

What had he even been thinking? He’s made it this long without kissing Ronan, long nights at the Barns, slow mornings of waking up with Ronan’s toes pressed into his calves. Why now? It wasn’t that this Ronan was more appealing than his Ronan. He prefers his own Ronan, rough edges and sharp smiles and bloodied knuckles and all.

Maybe that was why. This Ronan wasn’t his to loose. He was there for the taking, there for the kissing, and Adam wanted so badly.

He wanted in a quiet, locked away part of himself, one that he pushed aside for school and work and his overwhelming need to get out, out, out. And this place was eroding him down, until he felt as weak as a dissolving sandcastle, and just as likely to crumble.

A soft sound draws his attention, and a ginger tabby butts her head against Adam’s leg.

“Where did you come from?” Adam asks, voice sounding too loud in the quiet of the house. The cat butts him again, then twines around his leg. Adam waits for the storm of sneezes and runny eyes that usually accompanies any interaction with a cat. It doesn’t come, and Adam doesn’t flinch away when the cat jumps up into his lap, purring softly.

Slowly, carefully, he strokes a hand down the cat’s fur. The moon casts strange, pale shadows in the room, and the cat looks golden and luminescent in the light. He has a sudden inkling as to why his usual allergies might not be bothering him. She, he assumes that the cat is a she, nudges his hand.

The cat seems too soft, too delicate, and he worries that he will pet her too hard and she will shatter. Adam gently strokes a hand between her ears, down her back. She is too trusting. He will hurt her, surely. He waits, breath tight, for a whine or a hiss, a swipe of the claws to inform him that he doing this wrong.

“Her name is Hobbes.”

Ronan’s voice from the doorway makes Adam jump, but the cat, Hobbes, doesn’t twitch.

“Like the cartoon?”

Ronan snorts, and moves closer. The moonlight catches on his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose. He could be carved from marble, with the strong jaw and elegant brow of an emperor. “It’s a comic. And you always said she was named after the philosopher.”

Of course he did. Hobbes is another example of the disgustingly domestic life. A philosopher for Adam, a comic strip relic for Ronan. A perfect compromise.

Ronan sits down next to him, the couch dipping under his weight. Adam half expects Hobbes to get up and move to Ronan, the more familiar of the two, but she only purrs louder and curls deeper into Adam’s lap.

“I thought Hobbes was a boy tiger. I know he was a boy philosopher.”

“Blue said that if we ever tried to set our stereotypical gender norms on a cat, she would set this place on fire.”

“That seems excessive,” Adam remarks, feigning more calm than he feels. Hobbes’s purr is soothing, but not enough to outweigh Ronan’s warm presence at his side. He can feel Ronan shrug, the displacement of air brushing against his skin.

“I expected you to be long gone,” Ronan says, changing the subject.

Adam’s hand stills on Hobbes’ back. “The thought occurred to me.”

“What changed your mind?”

Hobbes wriggles pointedly, and he resumes petter her. “Where would I go.”

Ronan’s laugh is bitter. “Of course. What else?”

Adam hesitates. “And- this will sound crazy,” he trails off.

“Jeez, I wonder what that might be like,” Ronan drawls. His voice is tight, but Adam doesn’t dare look at him.

“I think I saw Noah. He stopped me.”

Adam isn’t sure what expects, some expression of shock, perhaps. Some form of relief, that Noah is still around. Whatever it is, it’s not what he gets. Ronan just grunts, dropping his head back against the back of the couch.

“Is that it?” Adam demands. “I thought Noah was supposed to be-” his breath catches around the word ‘dead,’ and he has to swallow. “Gone.”

“Most of the time. It’s good to know that he’s still hanging around.”

“Good to know he’s still hanging around?” Adam repeats, incredulous.

“Well, we didn’t exactly perform an exorcism! He’s not completely gone.”

“You made it sound like,” Adam makes himself stop. “You don’t sound surprised.”

Ronan laughs, and this is the laugh that Adam is familiar with in his Ronan. It’s harsh and bittter, uncannily like the sound Chainsaw makes when restless.

“Surprised? It’s the only fucking thing all night that hasn’t surprised me.”

“I don’t-”

Ronan turns to face him. “Of course it takes fucking divine intervention to keep you here. Adam Parrish, running away again. I thought, surely he can’t still be in the house. Surely, he would be gone. And then you’re here and I think, maybe I’m wrong. But no. It’s Noah. I am literally less surprised by the apparition of my dead friend than I was at the sight of you sitting on this couch.”

Adam open and closes his mouth, momentarily speechless. The vitriol in Ronan’s voice takes him by surprise.

“I’m sorry that I kissed you,” he says finally. He is, but he’s not sure that it’s for the right reasons.

Ronan lets his head fall back against the couch again, staring at the ceiling. “Of course you are.”

“I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to.” He has to strangle down the urge to keep talking, to make this right. Ronan isn’t looking at him anymore. He hates it.

“I know.”

Adam stares at him. “What?”

“You think I’m a fucking idiot? You’ve been about to crawl out of your skin over this future since you got here. I know you don’t want to fucking kiss me.”

Didn’t mean to is not the same as not wanting to. It seems vitally important that Ronan knows that, but Adam manages to choke the words back. It’s easier this way. It fits neatly into his purposes, for Ronan to think that. It’s easier to explain than the truth.

“Then why are you pissed?”

“Let’s think,” Ronan drawls, “maybe it bothers me, just a little, that my own fucking husband can;t stand to touch me.”

“I’m not your husband!” Adam snaps, voice breaking.

Ronan rounds on him. “That,” he spits out, “is obvious.”

“You can’t hold that against me!” It comes out as a cry, and the cat jumps out of his lap with a disgruntled noise.

“I’m not pissed about that, jesus christ Parrish. I know you’re not him.”

“Then what is your fucking deal?”

Ronan’s eyes are dark and piercing. Adam refuses to duck his gaze, but the effort is making him tremble, pinned like a butterfly under Ronan’s scrutiny. “I’m so goddamned tired of you running away.”

“I have never run away,” Adam says hotly

Ronan laughs, and the sound is like daggers. “Even you know that isn’t true, and I know how you like to delude yourself.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, of course. The Adam Parrish classic. Don’t you have anything new to say?”

Adam gets to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

Ronan’s grin is victorious. “There he goes again. Running away. You’re a coward, Adam, and running is all you even know how to do.”

“I don’t run away!” Adam shouts, and abruptly remembers Gansey and Blue, sleeping somewhere above them.

“No?” Ronan’s voice is arch. “Even when you’re standing still, you’re running. Or did you forget how much you avoided making a choice with your father? That one’s already happened, right?”

Adam recoils, feeling like he’s been slapped. “Don’t you dare-”

“You said you wanted it to be your choice, but it never was. You never made a decision, until it was too late to do anything else. You didn’t choose to stay, you ran away from having to choose.”

“Fuck you,’’ Adam spits, and he has never meant it more. He wishes he had saved those words for longer, used them less, so that they could have more of an impact, here in this moment.

“He would have killed you, and you would have stayed until you died rather than stand up and make a choice.”

“I left for you, you fucking shithead!” Adam shouts, and that’s enough to make Ronan fall silent.

“What?”

Adam sucks in breath, chest heaving he feels like he’s run a marathon, every muscle tense, every joint sore. “If I hadn’t made charges, they would have arrested you. Maybe you’re right, maybe I would have stayed until killed me. But if the cops didn’t know you had been defending me, if I hadn’t pressed charges- you would have been arrested. Expelled. And that was unacceptable to me.”

Ronan slowly sinks down onto the couch. “You never told me that.”

“I never wanted you to know.”

“You’re still a fucking coward.”

Adam slowly, carefully, moves to sit down beside him. The couch dips under him, and the cushions are a yawning space between them. “I know.” Nothing that Ronan has said has been untrue. Adam has always known the worst of himself. He is a coward. He just never thought that Ronan would see him so clearly.

Ronan turns to looks at him, and his face is drawn. “I’m tired of you running.”

“I’m not him, Ronan.” It hurts to say it. “I’m not your husband.”

Ronan laughs. “You’d be surprised.” When Adam just stares at him, Ronan reaches out. His hand almost brushes Adam’s face, then falls back to his side. “You’re so much like him.”  He laughs again. “I guess that sounds stupid. Of course you are. He’s you, after all.”

Adam is shaking his head before Ronan is even finished. “I’m not. Ronan, I’m not.”

“You are though. The same temper, the same smile. The same running.”

Cautiously, Adam reaches out and takes Ronan’s hand, running his thumb over Ronan’s wedding ring. “I get the impression he’s stopped running.”

Ronan’s mouth twitches up, and he squeezes Adam’s fingers. “I think so.” He hesitates. “I shouldn’t have said that about your father.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you. I guess we’re even.”

“Yeah, right.”

Adam drops his head against the back of the couch. He’s so tired. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Adam glares at him. “Because I am, fuck off. I’m not giving you an apology speech. It can’t have been that bad, you married me.”

The words feel heavy on his tongue, and he’s not thinking about them until they’re out of his mouth. It’s the first time he’s ever acknowledged that it’s him Ronan is married to, instead of some faceless stranger who bares Adam’s name.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“I don’t know Ronan, why do people kiss other people?” Adam snarls. He doesn’t want Ronan to press at his bruises, not now.

“Usually, it’s because they want to.”

“There you go then.”

“Except,” Ronan has the expectant air of a television lawyer, about to deliver his winning argument. “You don’t want to kiss me.”

Adam closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to do this. Only Ronan’s words about running keep him on the couch. “The evidence seems to suggest otherwise.”

“But,” for the first time, Ronan sounds as off guard as Adam feels. “But you don’t want to kiss me.”

“That line of argument is seeming increasingly stupid,” Adam drawls. Ronan jabs him in the side. It hurts.

“Stop that.”

Adam squirms away. “Stop what?”

“Don’t use your formal voice. I hate that.”

“That’s just my fucking voice, Ronan.” When did he start calling him Ronan?

“It’s your voice when you want to be in control. Or when you’re pissed. Stop.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“That’s more like it.” There is a smile in Ronan’s voice, a kind of sardonic amusement, and it makes Adam ache to go back home. He keeps his eyes closed. Like this, he can pretend that he never left at all. “But why did you kiss me?” It bursts out of Ronan, like he can’t keep it in, like he can’t help himself. He sounds so honestly confused that Adam can’t help but look at him.

“I already said it was a mistake, can we please move on?” He doesn’t say please often, especially not to Ronan, who can sense weakness like blood in the water.

“No!” Ronan snaps. “Because you, this you, past you, you don’t want me.” He spits out the words like poison, leaving them to lie at Adam’s feet, battered and baffling.

Adam opens his mouth, closes it again. You’re right, he wants to say. I don’t, I never will, he wants to say. But what will those lies matter to this Ronan. His own Ronan, maybe. Maybe it would keep him away, keep him from tangling Adam up in a wonderful life he can’t escape.

But this Ronan is looking at him like he can’t imagine that Adam kissed him because he wanted to, and nothing Adam can say will matter. In a few days, Adam will be home, and Ronan will be here and nothing Adam says now will stop them from being married. All his words can do now is hurt, and Adam doesn’t want that.

“I know this comes as a shock to you, coming from your future husband and all, but I kissed you because I wanted to.”

“You’re in love with Blue,” Ronan replies.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Adam gets to his feet and strides over to the window. “How is this a surprise to you?”

“Because!” Ronan snaps. “I remember being 18. I remember being so in love with you sometimes that I couldn’t breathe around it, and I remember you being,” he gestures “you! Indifferent and cold and never, not once, wanting to kiss me.”

The laugh bursts out of him, without consent, without control. He sinks to the floor under the weight of it, feeling undone under Ronan’s baffled gaze. “How,” he gasps out between breaths and laughter, “how did you ever believe that I was indifferent to you?”

Ronan approaches him like approaching a wild animal, clearly unnerved by Adam’s wild laughter. “Ok, maybe not indifferent. But definitely, definitely not wanting to kiss me.”

He drops down into the floor next to Adam, leaning up against the wall under the window. Adam lets himself lean against Ronan, indulging himself in everything he never wants to admit.

“I don’t want to want to kiss you,” Adam says, voice soft.

Ronan brushes a piece of hair off of Adam’s face, so tender that Adam flinches.  “That sounds like you.”

“I want to be my own. And if I kissed you, I would be yours.”

Ronan snorts. “Yeah, don’t worry. That is not a problem you have.”

“Sometimes I want you so much it scares me,” Adam whispers.

Ronan flinches back. “What the hell, Adam?”

Adam stares at him, feeling curiously detached. “I’m not in love with you. But I know, I just know, that I could be. And that scares the shit out of me.”

“Jesus Christ.” Ronan digs a fist into the soft carpet. “Jesus Christ, Adam, you couldn’t have found one time in the past ten years to tell me that?”

“I’m not him,” Adam reminds him.

Ronan laughs sharply. “Oh no. You are more him right now than I’ve ever seen you.”

Adam shakes his head. “I’m not! I’m not your perfect, loving husband. I’m scared and angry and the last thing I want is this domestic life in the middle of nowhere fucking Virginia. I have things I want to do Ronan, and I don’t want this life that he has to stop me from doing them! And he’s great and perfect and has magic and a husband and can let himself want you. And I just can’t do that.”

“Is that what you think?” Ronan’s voice is utterly incredulous.

“Well,” Adam digs his own fingers into the carpet, grasping at synthetic fibers, “yeah.”

“We don’t have a perfect life. I mean, yeah, we have a happy life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But you’re still a stubborn piece of shit, and I’m not any better and we still fight. And if you think anything different, you need to get your head out of your fucking ass.”

Adam twists his mouth into something like a smile. “Don’t hold your breath.”

Ronan tosses his head back and laughs, and Adam lets himself relax.

“Alright, I think thats enough emotional bullshit for the night,” Ronan says. “Will you sleep in the fucking bed now?”

Adam thinks it over.

“Don’t molest me in my sleep,” he replies.

“I could say the same.”

“No promises.”

Ronan laughs, and reaches a hand down to pull Adam up. Adam takes it, smiling.

–

Adam wakes up with face pressed into Ronan’s neck. He recoils, almost falling out of the bed in the process. Only Ronan’s arm, tight around his waist, stops him.

When he looks up, Ronan is grinning at him. “Sleep well, dear?”

Adam elbows him, hard. Ronan lets him go with a swear. It’s not the first time that Adam has shared a bed with Ronan, the two of them sprawled in the too-hot too-cold attic of St. Agnes, but usually Ronan is just as awkward as Adam, just as unwilling to make physical contact.

Adam rolls out of the bed. “I’m not going around in my boxers today.”

“I wondered when you’d have an issue with that.”

Adam crosses his arms over his chest. “How nice for you. Get me some pants.”

“Bossy,” Ronan says. He doesn’t sound like he minds. He gets out of the bed, making Adam painfully aware that Ronan is only wearing boxers and a tee-shirt himself. He suspects that Roan doesn’t usually even wear this much, and he sincerely appreciates the concession to modesty.

“He’s taller than you.”

“He is not,” Adam says, horrified.

“Amazing things happen when you actually eat food,” Ronan snipes, tossing a pair of jeans out of a drawer at Adam’s head.

“I eat!” Adam says.

“You really do not.”

Adam makes a vague grumbling noise and tugs the jeans on. They’re not too long on him, so the other Adam can’t be much taller than him, if at all, but he is certainly broader. The jeans are in serious danger of slipping directly off his hips. When he looks up, Ronan hands him a belt, grinning broadly.

“Laugh it up,” he says, threading the belt through the loops carefully.

“Don’t worry,” Ronan replies. “I am.”

Adam makes a face at him. He has a reply on the tip of his tongue, when his  stomach growls loud enough that even Ronan can hear it.

Ronan’s eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t say.”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, you ate an entire pizza like, three hours ago.”

Adam glances at the clock on the bedside table. “Eight hours, at the least.” He can’t even remember the last time he slept that long. Or that well.

“Your metabolism is a frightening thing,” Ronan says.

“I’m eighteen!”

Ronan tugs a old, soft pair of sweatpants on over his own boxers. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll make breakfast.”

Adam follows him down the stairs. “Pancakes again?”

“I’m not your personal chef. Bacon and eggs today.”

“How very all-American of you.”

“You’re a growing boy, you need protein.”

Adam snorts. “Thanks, mom.”

Ronan stops, and turns around slowly enough that it makes Adam nervous. “I am not,” he says slowly, “your goddamn mother.”

He strides into the kitchen, and Adam is left there, momentarily struck dumb. Then he shakes his head, and follows Ronan into the kitchen.

Adam leans against the counter, watching as Ronan cracks the eggs with an experienced hand and whisks them in a bowl. “Who taught you how to cook?”

“My dad,” Ronan says shortly.

“Not the maid?”

Ronan gives him a dirty look. “We didn’t have a maid.”

“I thought all rich people had maids.”

“I think you need to have watched less Richie Rich as a kid.”

“My whole life is a lie,” Adam says, smiling.

Ronan tips the eggs into the pan and sets out another for bacon. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

Something catches Adam’s attention, and he tilts his head. “Did you go to Harvard?” Ronan isn’t stupid, not by a long shot, but somehow Adam can’t imagine him at anywhere as structured as Harvard.

“What?”

“Your pants,” Adam indicates the red sweats Ronan was wearing. “Harvard.”

Ronan glances down, then scowls, as though the pants have betrayed him. “No,” he says shortly. “You did. Don’t let it go to your head.”

The key point of that, probably, is that Adam gets into Harvard. That he goes to Harvard, that he found some way to make it work, and had made it afterall. But all he can focus on is “You’re wearing my pants.”

Ronan rolls his eyes and turns back to the stove. “Yes, Parrish. I am wearing your pants. We’re married. It happens on occasion.”

“Oh,” Adam says faintly. Somehow, that feels even more intimate than sharing a bed. He’s shared a bed with Ronan before. He hasn’t ever had anyone who slips into his clothes, as easy as breathing.

Then, “What did I study?”

“Theatre.”

Adam grins. “Does Harvard even have a theatre program?”

Ronan tips the eggs onto a plate and whisks another two into the pan. “Hell if I know.”

“I’m going to find out what I do at some point,” Adam points out.

“You do that,” Ronan replies, utterly unconcerned.

Adam watches as Ronan expertly flips the bacon, sticks the plates of eggs in the oven to stay warm as he cooks. This is nice. This is somewhat wonderful, actually, and for once the thought doesn’t make him want to run.

Gansey staggers in ten minutes later, groaning, and collapses at the breakfast table. “Death is upon me.”

Blue, looking utterly uneffected by last nights events, slides in next to him. “He’s fine. Did you make coffee?”

Adam had made a baffled, hesitant attempt to make the complex machine in the corner work before Ronan had shooed him away. Still, he can at least pour a cup for Gansey and Blue before he returns to his own. The coffee is good enough that he suspects the machine itself may be a dream invention. But who knows, maybe all machines are this stupidly complex in the future. Maybe all coffee tastes this good.

“Eat.” Ronan says, dropping a plate down before Adam and another directly next to Gansey’s head. Gansey moans piteously.

“Looks great,” Blue says, stealing a piece of bacon off of Gansey’s plate before Ronan brings her plate over and takes the seat next to Adam.

Adam’s plate has twice as much food as the others. He digs in and watches in amusement as Blue silently wafts bacon under Gansey’s nose until he drags himself upright and starts in on the food himself.

Breakfast in consumed in a peaceful quiet. Part of it is a concession to Gansey’s hangover, but there is something comfortable about it nonetheless. Words aren’t needed. It reminds Adam of the nights at St. Agnes, Ronan stretched out on Adam’s bed as Adam sits and does his homework, both of them silent except for the occasional noise from Chainsaw.

He wants that back.

“So,” Blue says. “How do you feel about more magic.”

Adam groans. “Is ‘no thank you’ an option?”

“Nope.”

Adam turns pleading eyes to Gasney.

“Sorry, Adam,” Gansey says, picking up his and Blue’s plates and carrying them to the sink. “You know magic literally saves my life. In fact, I’m pretty sure you knowing magic has saved my life even at your point in the timestream. I’m with Jane on this.”

Adam sits forward in his chair, attention piqued. “Saved your life?”

Blue points at him. “No.”

“Come on!” Adam says indignantly. “I need to know these things.”

“Annoying, isn't it?” Ronan drawls.

“Very!”

Gansey snorts. “I believe that Ronan is attempting to tie this back to the actions of your counterpart, who was very reticent with his information during his stay. Which, of course, you have no knowledge of, so his point is moot.”

Adam goes tense at the word reticent, hating the familiar feeling of Gansey using words that he doesn't understand, but he clamps his mouth shut around the words of protest and swallows them down. “Right.” He takes a breath. “What about going to Cabeswater?”

The three of them exchange looks over Adam's head. “That's not a good idea,” Gansey says carefully. He picks up one of the plates and begins scrubbing at it.

Adam glares at him. “I don't like feeling like a prisoner in this house.”

“It's a very nice house though,” Blue replies cheerfully. Adam gives her a dirty look.

Gansey moves to sit back at the table, setting in next to Adam. “We can take you if you really want. But it’s not,” he hesitates, “it won’t be like you’re expecting. It’s not the same.”

Adam looks over to where Ronan is leaning his head on his palm, watching them. “He said that when future Adam does magic, he goes to Cabeswater.”

“I also said that he works in the Glens, or with me,” Ronan counters.

Adam scowls. “Well, it’s all the same, isn’t it?”

Blue drums her fingers on the table. “No.”

“Jane,” Gansey says reprovingly, before Adam can respond. He drops the dish he was scrubbing back into the sink and turns, leaning back against the counter. “As I understand it, there are different types of magic. And you only do,” he hesitates, and glances at Blue. She only cocks an eyebrow at him. “Offensive magic at Cabeswater.”

“For God’s sake,” Ronan snaps. “What they don’t want to say is that a big fucking war went down, Cabeswater was ground zero, and the magical energy will fuck up your unprotected snowflake soul.”

“Ah,” Gansey says.

Blue shrugs. “Yeah, basically.”

Adam swallows. “War.”

“I thought we agreed not to-” Blue starts, and Ronan scoffs.

“Yeah, right. My husband,” and the word is half exasperated, half amused, and entirely more than Adam can handle, “dropped more than enough hints back in the day. It’s not like I don’t clearly remember us filling him,” he jerks a thumb at Adam, “in on the salient details when he got back.”

Gansey and Blue both make the same face and it’s a bit startling.

“Fine,” Blue says. “Whatever. But that’s all he’s getting.”

“If they’re just going to tell me-”

“Just because Adam thinks it’s more important to show off for Ronan than to maintain the timeline doesn’t mean I agree,” Blue says, standing up.

Adam feels the back of his neck go hot, and he can see Ronan flinch beside him.

“Showing off?” Ronan asks, and his voice comes out- off. Adam doesn’t know how else to put it. Careful, almost.

Blue snorts. “You didn’t notice? He wanted you to think he was the best thing since sliced bread.”

“He was a huge tool!” Ronan protests.

“Hey!”

Gansey shrugs. “I think he thinks that is impressive.”

“I’m right here!”

Blue pins him with a look. “Well? Do you think being a tool makes you more impressive?”

Adam doesn’t think that much of anything makes him impressive. He shrugs. “No?”

“Leave him alone, it’s not his fault.” To Adam’s shock, it’s Ronan who says this. Adam gives him a stunned look, and Ronan responds with a glare. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to give him an earful when he gets home. He was a total asshole.”

“You’d know,” Adam mutters, then freezes. The last thing he wants is another fight. Ronan’s words, selfish, egotistical, indifferent, still ring in his ears. Then Ronan throws his head back and laughs and laughs.

Adam crosses his arms over his chest and scowls at the table, trying to ignore the way that his own mouth twitches upwards in response.

Blue and Gansey join in, until Adam can’t help but smile, watching them all laugh. In that moment, they don’t look any different than the friends he knows.

 

* * *

 

Ronan is getting very tired of being shoved into the back of the Pig with future Adam. He doesn't even like future Adam. But Blue has apparently earned permanent shot gun privileges by virtue of being the one Gansey most wants to bang and now Ronan has to find a way to jam his long leg into the seat behind Gansey.

Adam had shown at Monmouth in the morning looking tired and drawn and insisting that they go to Cabeswater as soon as possible. Gansey was thrilled. Ronan was less thrilled. He’s getting pretty tired of Cabeswater and the unrelenting amount of magical shit that place manages to spin out.

But Gansey calls Blue and they all pile into the Pig and apparently Ronan doesn’t get much of a vote anymore.

Cabeswater is loud in a way that makes no sound. It’s the sort of thing that Ronan never wants to have to express to the others, because it sounds so stupidly poetical. But it’s true. The trees whisper in his head, the birds sing the in background, but with his ears he hears nothing.

They’re in an area of Cabeswater that’s separate from where he left his mother, but right now he wishes he could hear her humming, listen to the domestic sounds of her movements. Anything but this heavy, oppressive quiet that rings in the ears.

Since Kavinsky, he’s been trying to separate out the difference between what he hears in his head and what he is actually hearing. He sneaks a glance at Adam, who strides through the trees with an easy confidence.

He had wanted to bring it up with his own Adam. Sometimes, he thinks of Adam saying ‘I can hear it with my deaf ear,’ and he knows that Adam will understand. Somehow, it had never come up between them, lost in the endless shuffle of conversations that don’t matter. Homework, Gansey’s family, Blue and her unique style. An endless rolodex of things to discuss so that feelings never had to come up.

They didn’t talk about the magic at St. Agnes. They didn’t talk about it at Monmouth. They would take a drive for over an hour to talk about it at the Barns or in the center of Cabeswater, and somehow nothing ever got discussed.

Adam must sense Ronan’s eyes, because he turns to flash him a smile. “Something on your mind?”

The way that he says it, not lascivious, but meaningful in a way that Ronan isn’t ready for, makes Ronan bristle.

“No.” He lets the branch he’s holding go at the exact moment to hit Adam square in the face.

To his surprise and irritation, the branch responds too slowly, falling back like gravity has lost effect. Adam puts his hand up, and the branch settles into his palm gently.

“That won’t work in Cabeswater,” he says, and it’s a full blown smirk on his face now. “Try harder.”

Ronan turns away, uncomfortably aware of his ears heating up. “Whatever.”

Gansey and Blue are ahead of them, making more noise than is strictly necessary. Ronan doesn’t know if it’s to drown out the unnatural quiet that Cabeswater has taken on recently, or to drown out whatever tension has been pushing on the two of them, thick enough that even Ronan has noticed.

“Why is it so quiet?” he asks.

Adam is at his side so fast Ronan wonders if the roots at their feet shifted to clear a path. They stride forward together, and Adam is silent for long enough that Ronan almost repeats himself.

“Have you heard the expression, the calm before the storm?” Adam asks, finally.

“Fuck off, I read.”

Adam grins at him, and it’s so full of affection that Ronan wants to punch him in the face.

“Do you?”

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors.” He turns his head to grin into Adam’s openly startled face. “Don’t knock your friends,” he finishes, smugly.

Adam throws his head back when he laughs, open and unrepentantly delighted. “Tennyson.”

Ronan looks back at the path, because Cabeswater is more forgiving towards him than towards Gansey or Blue but if there is a branch in his path, he’ll still trip on it. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“If I had a flower for every time I thought you of,” Adam says, and his voice is soft, “I would walk in my garden forever.”

Ronan trips over a branch and goes sprawling.

“Tennyson,” Adam says innocently. He holds out a hand to Ronan. Ronan glowers at him and gets up without it.

“Shut up.” His whole face is red, he can feel it. He’s back to wanting to punch Adam in the face again. He takes a strange sort of comfort in it, pulls it close to drown out the way that his heart is thudding uncomfortably in his chest.

“Are you alright back there?” Gansey calls, and he’s far enough ahead that he is only visible by the bright teal of his shirt. Blue, in today’s ensemble of green and brown, is completely unseen.

“Fine!” Adam calls back. He brushes Ronan’s arm off and Ronan pulls back, fast enough that he almost falls again. Adam’s hands are warm on his shoulders, and for a moment they are poised like that.

Then Ronan breaks free. “Are you ever going to tell me why it’s so quiet?” he demands. “Or is this you stalling.”

For a split second, he thinks he sees something on Adam’s face. Embarrassment, maybe. it’s an expression he’s become accustomed to on his Adam, and one he has learned to hate, or he might never have noticed.

“I wasn’t stalling.”

Ronan snorts, and pushes past Adam to head towards Gansey. “Whatever.”

“You always manage to surprise me,” Adam says, and his voice is shockingly sincere. Ronan knows what sincere sounds like on Adam, rare though it is.

He shrugs one shoulder, uncomfortable, and doesn't look back. This sincerity is almost worse that this Adam’s flirtatious teasing.

“You must not be very observant,” he says. “I’m a goddamn open book.”

Adam barks a laugh. This Adam has laughed more in the entire time that they’ve known one another than Ronan can coax out of his Adam in a month. He doesn’t want this Adam, but he wants that. He wants the laughter.

“Oh, Ronan. That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”

It’s the phrasing, maybe. The strange emphasis he puts on those words, when he’s said them before. Maybe this Adam doesn’t remember. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. But Ronan remembers the last time Adam, his Adam, the real Adam, had said them.

And Adam had responded in the same way. And the thing is, Adam probably doesn’t remember. it had been a joke, a teasing remark about telling the truth, about sincerity. But Ronan remembers how he had been momentarily, breathtakingly terrified. What did Adam know, what did he suspect?

And this Adam can’t possibly remember that, but Ronan does, and he is abruptly fed up. Done.

He spins on his heel and leans close into Adam’s face, finger coming up to shove Adam away. “Stop fucking with me. Give me a goddamn fucking straight answer, Parrish.”

Adam looks at him. The way the ground slopes gives the illusion that Adam is looking down at him, and it makes Ronan all the more uncomfortable.

Then Adam exhales, and seems to shrink with it. He looks sad and so, so serious.

“Cabeswater knows that something is coming. That the third sleeper is awake. That’s why I’m here. And Cabeswater is readying itself for war.”

Ronan just stares at him. It’s not news, not really. But the way that Adam says it. Cold, serious. For a moment, he has no idea who Adam is. He is a soldier, in Adam’s body. Then Adam’s face softens, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not trying to fuck with you, either.”

It’s enough to break Ronan out of it. “Like hell you aren’t.”

He takes a perverse delight in how stricken Adam looks. “Ronan-”

“Don’t call me that!” He shoves Adam’s hands off of him. “Stop flirting, stop touching and stop quoting fucking poetry! I’m not your fucking toy!”

Adam’s face is drawn and tight. “Right. I didn’t realize. I just-” he shrugs. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’re right. Won’t happen again, Lynch.”

He turns, leaves Ronan standing there, poised in the silence that falls in the wake of Adam’s words. Ronan can hear him, moving through Cabeswater so easily that he seems to be a part of it- otherworldly and fey. At the sound of voices, Adam saying something to Blue and Gansey, Ronan makes his feet move.

He chooses to focus on the earlier part of Adam’s words, shoving Adam’s hurt expression and stricken eyes out his thoughts. War. Cabeswater is readying itself for war. It makes sense, now that Ronan is thinking of it. The trees whisper and not even he can make out their words. The murmur sounds suspicious. There were never this many thorned bushes before, and a wrong turn leaves shallow gashes across his arms.

They crisscross his old scars, and he wonders if this magical world will ever bring him anything but pain.

When he finally catches up to the others, Adam is on the ground, leaning back on his heads with his legs crossed. His face is upturned to the small amount of sunshine that creeps through the treetops. Gansey leans against a tree, and Blue is on her back next to him. Her head is close enough that she could have put it on Gansey’s leg instead, but she hadn’t. Out of deference to her own rules or to Adam and Ronan’s presence, Ronan isn’t sure.

Ronan drops to the ground. “Tell them.” He commands.

Adam looks at him without moving his head, and there is still something painfully hesitant in his expression. Ronan is so fucking done with him that it isn’t even funny.

“Tell who what?”

Ronan grits his teeth. “Tell Gansey and Blue what you just told me.”

“Is that the first time you’ve used my name?” Blue asks idly.

“Can’t be,” Gansey replies. His left hand is absently playing with the ends of her hair. “I think he called you Blue in the caves.”

“And once at Monmouth,” she replies. They aren’t even talking to him, staring disgustedly into one another’s eyes.

“That’s right,” Gansey says. “Though I believe that one may have been a mistake.”

Blue nods, mock serious. “I think you may be right.”

“It must be important then,” Gansey says teasingly.

“It must be,” Blue agrees.

“It is.” Ronan forces out between gritted teeth. “Parrish, would you fucking tell them?”

“Are we done with first names then?”Adam asks. His eyes are closed, but Ronan recognizes the way that his mouth is pulled tight. He’s lashing out.  “I was liking that.”

“I bet you were,” Blue says, then snorts at her own joke. Gansey snorts too, even though he would probably want to call it a chuckle.

“This is serious!” Ronan snaps. He doesn’t like feeling like he has to be the one to keep order, but he doesn’t understand how none of them can feel it. Cabeswater, usually opening and warm, feels oppressive. The air seems to hang heavy, the trees leaning in closer and darker. The branches are thicker, less light getting through to the clearing. It’s the heavy pressure before a bad storm.

He can sense more then see the way that Blue and Gansey exchange a look. Then Blue sits up. The tree Gansey is leaning against is wide enough that she can fit beside him, their shoulders pressed together.

“What is it, Ronan?” Blue asks, and her voice is kinder than he is used to hearing from her.

“Care to share, Parrish?”

Adam’s pose says relaxed, still leaning back on his hands, but Ronan knows his own Adam well enough to recognise the tension in his pose, the way the muscles in his arm are defined, the way his fingers dig into the ground.

“I have more of a theory as to why I’m here then I wanted to share. I thought I could do it alone. I was wrong.”

“Bit of a fast change for you, isn’t it?” Blue asks, and her voice is sharp. Ronan feels comforted in having her for an ally.

“I’m sorry if my traumatizing time travel experience is an inconvenience for you,” Adam snaps.

“Then go home, and send our Adam back!” Blue replies.

“I can’t!” Adam sucks in a deep breath, lets it out again. “I can’t. I asked Cabeswater- three days. Just like what I remember.”

“Talked to Cabeswater?” Blue sounds skeptical, which is pretty highhanded for a girl with a psychic for a mother.

Adam waves a hand. “Communed, whatever. I used your Adam’s deck. It’s not perfect- it knows him better than it knows me. But I managed.”

“That’s great,” Ronan drawls. “Can we get back to the war thing?”

Gansey sits up straighter. “War?”

Adam gives Ronan a refreshingly familiar dirty look. “I was getting to that.”

“Get faster.”

“The third sleeper is awake. And they know how to use Cabeswater a lot better than you do.”

Gansey's face folds into a dark look. “But he can’t have Cabeswater. Cabeswater is ours.”

The expression on Adam’s face is almost pitying. “It’s only yours because no one else has been here to lay claim. You of all people should know that ownership is only a matter of power.”

Gansey’s curl into loose fists then release. “It’s only ever been you who thought that, Adam.”

“Whatever,” Adam shrugs, his shoulders moving like he wants the words to slide right off him. It’s such a teenage response, such a product of the Adam of now that Ronan snorts.

Adam looks over at him, and cocks an eyebrow. Ronan shakes his head, but he lets himself sit down. Not close. Not as close as he would let himself sit before.

“And why are we getting so blessed with this information now?” Blue asks.

Adam fidgets with his wedding ring. “I need your help.”

Ronan gasps and clutches his chest theatrically. Adam shoves him, hard enough to send him sprawling, and Ronan laughs. He stays there, staring up at the sky through the trees, listening to Adam talk about wards and magic.

“And,” Adam says. “I think I need to teach Blue magic.”

“What?” Blue and Gansey say it together, and Ronan rolls his eyes at the sky. It’s less satisfying when none of them can see him.

“I always thought it was Gwenllian who taught you the basics,” Adam continues. “But I’m pretty sure that is some sort of bullshit time travel nonsense. I teach you magic in the past, you teach me magic in the future.”

“I’m really starting to hate time travel,” Gansey mutters.

“Only now?” Adam asks. “I’ve hated it since I woke up here yesterday.”

“You lack my sense of adventure,” Gansey says primly. It in, in all fairness, probably true.

“Fair enough,” Adam says. “Next time, you travel to the past. It’s just tons of fun.”

“Yeah, yeah, your life is the worst. What were you saying about teaching me magic?”

Leaves rustle, and Ronan rolls his head to the side to watch Adam rub the back of his neck nervously. “Just the basics. Adam is going to be learning in the future-”

“From me.” Blue doesn’t phrase it as a question.

“Yes? From future you.”

Ronan groans. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“It’s been ridiculous,” Gansey replies.

“When can we start?” Blue asks eagerly. She sits up on her knees, staring up at Adam with an expression that makes Ronan uncomfortable.

Adam blinks, taken aback. For a moment, Ronan pictures his Adam in the future, with some other version of Blue trying to get him to learn magic like pulling teeth. The thought makes him smile.

“Now?” It comes out more like a question.

“What, really?” Gansey demands, and now he is leaning forward as well. Ronan is starting to feel like the only one that doesn’t go all tingly at the thought of doing magic. Magic has only ever made his life harder.

“Some of the things I need to do need all of us, so- yeah. Now.”

“Even me?” Gansey asks. “I mean, I’m the only one without. That is to say, I don’t have any magic to offer.”

Adam’s face softens. “Gansey, you moron. You’re our leader.” The way he says it feels heavy. The way he says it sounds like king.

–

Adam has them all sit in a circle, a level of hippie bullshit that Ronan is only barely willing to tolerate. Ronan is glad that he’s sitting on the other side of the circle, because Adam actually has them all join hands.

Ronan had snorted, but Gansey and Blue had done it with the solemnity of a prayer, and they had both held out expectant hands to him until he had no choice but to follow suit. Gansey’s hand is warm, Blue’s is small and cool.

“The first thing we need to do is learn warding,” Adam says. “If I do literally nothing else, it will still be worth it.”

“Why?’ Gansey ask. There is no challenge in his voice, only honest curiosity. Ronan resists the urge to roll his eyes at his earnestness.

“Good questions, Gansey,” Adam says, like a fucking weirdo. Like a fucking adult. “It’s partly to stop any of our magic leaking out, but mostly to stop anything else from getting in.” His eyes dart to Ronan, then back. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the energy at Cabeswater is… wrong. Off. It’s being influenced by the third sleeper. This should help.

“Neeve had wards set up. Didn’t help her much,” Blue says. “And that was when the sleeper was, well, asleep.”

“Neeve,” Adam says with a casual disregard, “was an idiot.”

Blue shrugs, not arguing the point. “Doesn’t mean she didn’t know what she was doing.”

Adam’s grin has a touch of arrogance to it. It’s a good look on him. “It really does. First, she didn’t have hardly any real magic. She knew the right tools to use, and that let her fake it, for a time. Oh, she was a gifted psychic, don’t get me wrong, but when it came to real magic, like you have?” He shrugged, “not so much. Then, she tried to mess around with shit she didn’t have any business messing around with. Defensive wards don’t do much good when you go knocking on the devil’s door.”

Blue is staring at Adam with the sort of fixed concentration that even Ronan, the only one in the circle who has never wanted to kiss her, knows means trouble.

“I didn’t think you and Neeve were that close,” she says slowly. “Since she went missing right after we met and all.”

Adam tenses, and Ronan is reminded all over again how much of a bad liar Adam is. He finds it reassuring. “Henrietta is a small town,” he says.

“She’s alive, isn’t she? You know what happened to her. Did the third sleeper get her? Is she ok?”

“For now,” Ronan says, before he can stop himself. All eyes turn to him.

“What does that mean?” Blue asks, voice sharp and brittle. Her hand on his is squeezing too tight.

“I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“Oh, are you the psychic now?”

Ronan bristles. “It’s obvious because Parrish kept talking about her in the past tense.”

Gansey and Blue both swivel their heads back to Adam, and it’s almost funny. Almost.

“Well?” Blue demands.

Adam hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

“Gee,” Blue draws. “Complicated. I wonder what that’s like.”

Adam meets her gaze, unrelenting. “If I tell you what happens, you’ll try to stop it.” He is staring at Blue so intently that Ronan wonders if she will burst into flames. “And you only get one miracle at a time.”

Blue draws in a breath, and her hand tightens convulsively on Ronan’s. From Adam’s wince, she does the same to him. “I see,” she says tensely. Then nothing.

Gansey opens his mouth, closes it again.

“Are we learning wards or not?” Blue snaps. Her face is waxen.

“Close your eyes,” Adam says. “And picture a wall.”

Ronan snorts, he can’t help himself. Adam gives him a dirty look.

“What?” Ronan demands. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me again how you summon your dream things?” Adam asks, voice all saccharine sweetness. “Does it perhaps start with you closing your eyes?”

“Yeah, because I literally need to be sleeping.”

Adam scowls. “Fine. Stand up.”

Taken aback, Ronan stares at him. “What?”

“Stand. Up.” There is a steely command in Adam’s voice and it makes Ronan want to- well. Standing up is not his first instinct.

Blue and Gansey are watching him.

“Make me,” Ronan snarls, because anything else would be too revealing.

Adam smiles, and Ronan half expects to see blood in his teeth. He opens his mouth, and Ronan fights the urge to lean in, half afraid and half eager to hear what Adam has to say.

Gansey clears his throat and drops Ronan’s hand. “Perhaps if we took a break,” he suggests. Ronan relaxes back, feeling abruptly like a puppet with cut strings.

Adam settles back with an exasperated sigh. Ronan hadn’t even noticed that he had been leaning forward. “Gansey, we haven’t even started.”

Gansey shrugs, a movement that always looked different when he did it. Less like an apathetic teenager, more like the casual disregard of someone who has more important things to do. Ronan aspires to that shrug.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Fine, we’ll all stand.”

He pushes himself to his feet, offering Blue a hand up. To Ronan’s surprise, she accepts, and laughs when Adam tugs her up with too much enthusiasm and she almost stumbles into him.

Ronan looks up at the three of them, clustered around him, and for a moment has the urge to stay seated, just to see what Adam would do. But Gansey is giving him that look, the kind that brooks no disagreement, so Ronan reluctantly gets to his feet.

“Right,” Adam claps his hands together. “Right. So, I’m going to set up the wards around Cabeswater. That should create a better space for us to practice, I probably should have started with that anyway.”

“Probably,” Ronan says under his breath. Blue elbows him and he stifles a grunt.

Adam ignores him. “There are two kinds of wards; personal and protective. Personal is, well, what it sounds. It’s the picture a wall variety. It’s going to be most useful for Blue. For one, it should stop you from bleeding energy all over the place.”

“I can do that?” Blue asks, surprised and pleased.

“With practice,” Adam grins at her. “And then there are protective wards, which is what I’m going to do now. It’s one of my specialties, actually. You probably couldn’t find anywhere in the United States better protected than the Glens.” There is a proud tilt to his smile. It’s not arrogance, not boasting. Adam means it, and he’s proud of the skill, in a way that Ronan rarely sees him. Adam always sees his own gifts as accidental byproducts of his hard work, and never takes credit for any of them. Ronan wonders when he picked it up.

“What the fuck is the Glens?” he asks instead.

Adam’s smile fades. “Nothing.” He pushes through a crop of bushes. “It’s nothing.”

Ronan is getting really, really tired of that answer. He opens his mouth to say so, and is stopped by a cold hand on his arm. When he looks over, Noah just shakes his head, looking sad.

“Don’t you need tools?” Blue asks. “For large scale wards?”

“Usually, yes.” The smug grin is back. “Not for me though. Not for this.”

“This?” Gansey asks.

“I’m going to ward Cabeswater. I’m going to fortify it for war.” Adam pushes off ahead of them, heading away from the center of Cabeswater.

“Have you noticed that future Adam is a huge drama queen?” Blue asks, setting off after him.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Gansey replies, and Noah laughs.

“I think he just likes to make an exit.”

“I’m not sure it counts if we have to follow him.”

“He can hear you!” Adam calls. “And keep up!”

Blue rolls her eyes. “Right.”

The trees and bushes seems even thicker this time than they had on the way in, the sky darker than it should be at this time.

“Are we leaving?” Gansey asks, and his voice sounds startling in the quiet that Ronan hadn’t even realized was falling.

“Not exactly. Ronan, can you tell where Cabeswater ends?”

“What?”

“As they Greywarren. Can you feel the border of Cabeswater?”

Ronan has never tried. He can tell when they’re in Cabeswater, he can tell when they’re not. It never seems to have anything as abrupt as a beginning or an end. He shrugs.

“Try.”

“Were you always this bossy?” Ronan asks. Adam just gives him a rude gesture.

Ronan focuses, leaning into the sense of the trees that hears Latin instead of wind in the leaves, of the sense of where the real world could become dreamworld if he isn’t careful. He reaches out with- something. Some part of him. Like straining to listen to the radio in another room.

“About ten feet in front of us,” he says finally.

Adam gives him a delighted look. “Exactly.”

Blue is frowning, more thoughtful than displeased. “How does that help us?”

“When in doubt, it is always to ward yourself inside the protection.”

Gansey makes an aborted movement like he wants to raise his hand. “Can’t we just make a,” he gestures a few times, like he is trying to form an invisible snowball, “a stronghold in the center of Cabeswater? Instead of warding the entire thing?”

“Yes, usually. Except that in this case, Cabeswater is power. If we ward it, if we protect it, we limit the access that the third sleeper has to that same power.”

Gansey makes a face. “Isn’t that wrong? Cabeswater doesn’t belong to us. It isn’t ours to claim just because we found it.”

Ronan makes the mistake of looking at Blue in that moment, and wishes he hadn’t. Her face is alight, dazzled. She looks like she’s never seen Gansey before and never wants to see anyone else. If their whatever it was had been a secret before, the look on her face would have blown it wide open.

Adam looks less dazzled. “It’s to keep it out of the hand of bad people,” he says, sounding exasperated.

“As decided by whom?” Gansey snaps. “You? What gives you, gives any of us, the right to decide who gets power and who does not.”

“I could lock us out as well,” Adam says. “But that would leave us defenseless against the war that’s coming, and the third sleeper has more than just Cabeswater on their side.”

“This isn’t right!” Gansey says, voice rising.

“I know!” Adam shouts, and he rocks back on his feet. “I don’t think that anyone should have this power. I think that it’s dangerous, and it should probably be locked away for good. It’s something that people like Whelk and Kavinsky and Piper use to hurt other people and to get their way. But there is no choice, Gansey. If I have to lock away every drop of magic in the world to keep you alive, I will do it, and I will not regret it, not for a second.”

“Adam.” Blue’s voice cuts across his words like a cool river, warning in her tone. “It’s ok.” To Gasney she says, “He’s right. Maybe other people should have access to it, maybe not. Maybe we can’t be trusted any more than them. But it’s all we have. And I’d rather that we have it and not the third sleeper. Or another Whelk.”

Ronan sees the way that Gansey looks at Noah, and the guilt that flickers over his face, before Gansey replies. “Fine.”

“Right.” Adam somehow gives the impression of rolling up his shirt sleeves. “Let me show you why I don’t need tools.”

He moves forward, closer to the place where Cabeswater stops being Cabeswater and starts being just an ordinary forest, then turns along an invisble line and starts walking, parallel with the border. As he walks, a low line of green, spiney plants springs up behind him. The trees curve into him, the wind picks up.

“Fuck.”

Blue, watching with wide, dark eyes, only nods.

Gansey approaches the line slowly, and touches the spiney plant. “Aloe.” Then he grins, and tugs the leaf off a plant that grows between all the aloe plants, creating a solid line of green in Adam’s wake. “Mint.” He crushes the leaf between two fingers, and the sharp, clean smell reaches Ronan’s nose.

“Don’t eat it,” Adam says over his shoulder.

“It is so cool that you are doing this,” Gansey says, moving to Adam’s side.

“I’m glad it’s not evil and immoral anymore,” Adam replies. He doesn’t break his stride, green continuing to sprout in his wake. “Blue, you’ll need to use your own plants or spices as a base. I like aloe, it’s good for protection and healing. And mint, of course. I have a slight advantage of,” he gestures behind him, “slight accidental magician status. As you go, you’ll need to imagine what you need the wards to do, tie it into whatever your base it. There are some more fancy things involved, but it’s ultimately about your will.”

Blue nods eagerly. “Am I good at it? In the future?”

“You’re amazing.”

Blue beams.

“This is so cool,” Gansey says, following the line of aloe with his eyes. “Are you really going to do this for all of Cabeswater?”

“Yes.”

The tone of Adam’s voice catches Ronan’s attention. It’s his ‘I’m going to take a second job even though I have no time,’ voice, his ‘I’ll find somewhere to live on my own,’ voice. It means that Adam is about to do something stubborn and stupid.

“So,” Ronan says, pitching his voice as casual as he can. “Is it hard?”

Adam, focusing on whatever magic he’s spinning in his mind, answers absently. “Not always. In large doses, it can be dangerous, but it’s usually not bad.”

“Large doses like, say, warding all of Cabeswater?”

To his credit, Adam doesn’t flinch, just keeps staring into space. “I’ll be fine.”

“Adam, if this is dangerous,” Gansey begins.

“I’m fairly certain that this is what Cabeswater called me for,” Adam says, and his voice is starting to strain. “Because I am at the right time, the right skill level, to pull this off.”

“By how much?” Noah asks, voice soft.

“Plenty.”

“Adam-”

“I need to focus.”

The next few minutes feel curiously surreal, even for Cabeswater. The strange atmosphere, the tension of whatever magic holds Cabeswater, presses against whatever it is that Adam is doing, and they are suspended in a moment of silence. Adam just keeps walking, aloe and mint springing up in his path.

It’s Noah who first sees Adam falter.

“I’m fine,” Adam brushes them off. “Only a little dizzy.”

“Adam,” Gansey says, tone heavy with concern. “If you need-”

“What I need,” Adam grits out, “is to finish this.”

Ronan reaches out with his magic Cabeswater sense, or whatever he wants to call it, his Greywaren powers. They’re less than halfway around.

“What do you need?” He asks, because trying to stop Adam when he gets like this is nearly impossible.

“I can help?” Blue offers, tentative. “Would it help if I,” she extends her hand to him, waggling her fingers. Adam stares at the hand for a long moment.

“It won’t work,” he says softly. “Our magic is too similar, you can’t mirror me.”

“Oh.” Blue’s hand falls to her side. “I’m sorry.”

Adam reaches out and brushes a hand over her hair. “Don’t be. That’s not all you’re good for.”

Blue’s face goes through an impressive array of expressions, before she crosses her arms over her chest. “No one asked you.”

“What will help?” Gansey asks, still clutching Adam’s elbow to keep him upright.

Adam makes a face, his ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ face.

“It’s Ronan,” Noah says. When Adam glares at him, he shrugs. “What? It is. You wouldn’t have said anything.”

“For a good reason,” Adam grits out.

“What about me?” Ronan asks.

Adam rolls his eyes up, like he is praying for patience. “You could, possibly, be helpful.”

Ronan blinks at him. “I don’t think I can dream anything up for this.”

“Not your dreams,” Adam says, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, “you. You’re my,” he swallows, then says, “my focus.”

Ronan has no idea what that means, but from the way Adam is staring at the invisible border of Cabeswater, pointedly not meeting , it must mean something.

“Right,” Ronan says. “So what does that mean.”

“It means you help me focus,” Adam snaps.

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Yes, thank you. What do you need.”

Adam’s ears are going red. Ronan can’t seem to look away. “I need you to hold my hand.”

It is only the matching grins spreading across Blue, Gansey and Noah’s faces that convince Ronan he heard correctly.

“I- what?” Mostly convince.

Adam shoves his hand under Ronan’s nose. “You heard me.”

“Right.” Ronan stares at the hand. It’s a nice hand. It’s clearly Adam’s hand, the same long fingers, pale knuckles. The same scar over the back of it, the same scattered freckles. “Why?”

“Because magic is a stupid, bullshit hippy science that wants me to hold your hand,” Adam says, and grabs Ronan’s fingers between his own.

The clearing doesn’t exactly flood with light, but Noah makes a low, understanding noise and seems to be ever so slightly more corporeal.

“How does this work?” Gansey asks Blue in an undertone.

“I’m not sure,” Blue mutters back. “But it’s working for me.”

Ronan adjusts their grip so Adam’s fingers aren’t so painfully tight around his, and steps forward so that he is walking at Adam’s side. The aloe and mint continues to spring up behind them, releasing a sweet, clean scent into the air.


	5. Chapter 5

Ronan draws an X in the dirt, and then slowly draws a line through their make-shift tic-tac-toe board.

“I win.”

Noah pouts at him. “Best three of five?”

“That _was_ three of five.”

“Best five of seven?”

Ronan sighs, like it’s such a hardship, but he doesn’t actually mind. It’s nice—a quiet, suspended moment as Adam teaches Blue magic and Gansey tries to pretend like he isn’t taking notes in his mind.

As Noah scrubs the dirt clean and begins to redraw their excessively complicated, 16 square board, Ronan glances around at the others. Adam has set Blue to magical tasks, expanding a bubble of light between her hands and shrinking it back down again. He hadn't wanted to leave after warding Cabeswater, despite his obvious exhaustion. Instead, he'd given some hippy magic reason about the air holding more energy directly after a warding, and how it would be best for Blue's magical development.

Gansey is watching the fish chase one another in the pond, their scales flickering from silver to red to black. He’s not sure if Gansey is doing it on purpose, or if Cabeswater is responding to Gansey’s unspoken wish to see something magical. He is twisting a sprig of mint plant between his fingers, picked from Adam's warding circle.

Noah is stretched out next to Ronan, close enough that Ronan feels a slight chill in his fingertips and toes, but nothing more. Adam is. Ronan opens his eyes fully, looking around. Adam is gone.

Ronan feels a rush of irrational fear. He knows that, in theory, Cabeswater is safe. That was the entire point of the warding, wasn't it?

But in practice, Cabeswater can be dark and inhuman. It has no concept of good or bad, right or wrong. It has terrible, twisted places. The area where Noah died, the twisted tree, the caves that none of them had dared to go near since rescuing Maura. And Adam is tired and drawn. He had barely been able to stand after they finished warding Cabeswater, leaning heavy on Ronan's shoulders and not even making any sarcastic remarks.

Noah sits up when Ronan does, watching him watch everyone else. Gansey is trailing a finger through the water, smiling as the fish chase after it. Blue is utterly focused on the light in her hands, scowling as it flickers.

“Where did he go?” Ronan asks in an undertone. Noah cocks his head, eyes going vague and distant for a moment. Ronan regrets asking, he hates it when Noah looks like that. It makes him feel like Noah will never come back.

“Does this mean no rematch?”

“Czerny, there is no rematch. It would only be continuing this massacre.”

Noah sighs, a long, drawn out, overdramatic sound. “This way,” he says, just as soft. He stands, making no noise as he does so. Times like this, Ronan has no trouble believing that Noah is a ghost, increasingly more dead than alive.

Ronan glances over his shoulder, but the others don’t seem to notice. They’ve already been at Cabeswater for hours, and they're both lost to its magic. Ronan feels an uneasy chill go down his spine.

Noah leads him through the trees, and he hardly seems to stop, or pause to think. Without hesitation, he leads Ronan through the trees. He seems to glide right through spots that make Ronan need to push aside branches and step over low bushes. He is hardly corporeal at all, and not even Cabeswater brings him back anymore. Only Blue and her magic battery powers ever help him, and that only for a time.

“Why would he wander off?” Ronan demands, trying not to show concern.

“You’ll see,” Noah replies. Because his need for dramatic moments and cryptic statements is matched only by Adam’s.

“Thanks,” Ronan says caustically. Noah shrugs.

Ronan breathes out through his nose, frustrated. If Adam is right, then he only has a limited time to help them. By Ronan's count, Adam will be out of time by sometime tomorrow. If all his dire words about war and great evil and being prepared are accurate, then he should be helping them, not running away to chase after ghosts in Cabeswater. Ronan eyes Noah's back. No pun intended.

After a few moments, the area starts to look familiar. The way the grass slopes, the trees thinning out. The way the light shines through the leaves, coming through like a clear spring day, golden and bright. “Wait,” Ronan says, but he isn’t sure he wants Noah to stop, exactly. He isn’t sure he wants his theory confirmed.

Noah ignores him. “Through here.” He pushes through a fall of leaves, one of the softer barriers that Cabeswater has. Ronan knows exactly where they are.

When he steps through, his mother and Adam both look up at him. Two pairs of blue eyes, lit up at the sight of him.

“Ronan, darling.” His mother sounds, as always, delighted to see him, in a way that almost breaks his heart. He isn’t sure what to do with her unconditional love anymore. He feels so far removed from the boy who once accepted it without question. “I was just talking to your friend here.”

“He’s not my friend,” Ronan replies. It doesn’t do any good. Adam just grins at him, and his mother gives him a vaguely disapproving look that still has the ability to make him feel guilty. Something about just being near her makes Ronan feel young and small.

“Ronan,” she says, gently reproving.

Adam rests his hand on her wrist. His hands seem to dwarf hers. “It’s alright, Mrs. Lynch. I don’t mind.” He shoots Ronan a wicked grin. "I'm used to it."

In strikes Ronan, suddenly, uncomfortably, how much they both look like adults. His mother, barely older than 40 if they measured by her fake drivers license, Adam at almost 30, stretched away from Ronan by time and distance.

The difference between this Adam and Ronan is hardly more difference than the difference between this Adam and Aurora, but between the two of them, it’s harder to tell. Maybe that’s the thing about adulthood. It hardly shows, until you’ve reached a certain age. Maybe even less, when you are a creature of dreams and air.

Adam is a creature of out of time, and at times he seems improbably younger than the Adam that Ronan is so familiar with. And Aurora is timeless, in her own world in this clearing. They are both so terribly out of reach.

Aurora gives him a soft, teasing smile. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” She holds her arms out expectantly. She looks small and frail and delicate. She doesn't stand, sure in the knowledge that Ronan is going to come to her. It reminds Ronan of how she would sit, still and unmoving in the empty Barns, waiting for a man who was never coming back.

Ronan swallows, and moves to hug her. Adam shifts to let him in, letting his hand slide away from Aurora to give Ronan room. Aurora curls her hand around the back of Ronan's hand, and he can feel the strength in her fingers. He breathes in a gasp, and she smells like his childhood. He's never going to get tired of this. Ronan only pulls away when she lets him go, even his awareness of Adam just by his arm can't make him embarrassed.

Aurora gives him a hug that belies her small frame, her arms tight around him. He presses his nose into her neck, breathing in the familiar smell of her perfume. Logically, it’s him that’s gotten bigger, but it strikes him that she seems so much smaller.

When he straightens, Ronan expects Adam to tease him, at the least to be smirking at him. He’s not sure why, when his own Adam has never been anything but quietly supportive about Aurora. He already has defiance tilting his chin up, defensiveness at the ready, but this Adam is only watching, eyes and expression soft. It's the first time that Ronan has seen him so open, and Ronan has to blink away.

Adam has mentioned being married a few times. He's mentioned caring about Ronan. But he's never said anything about love. And yet—Ronan isn't stupid enough to mistake the look in Adam's eyes just then.

Ronan blinks sharply, caught between the look on Adam's face, and the affectionate smile Aurora gives him.

“You act as though you haven’t seen me in years,” his mother says chidingly, holding him at arm’s length. Ronan laughs, because he doesn’t know what else to do. The sound scrapes at his throat as it comes out. Time passes for her so strangely, perhaps to her it has only been a few hours. It’s been weeks.

Ronan settles down to sit at the floor by her chair. The whole area is set up like an Alice in Wonderland tea party, which he's sure that she loves when she is lucid enough to notice.

Her chair now is pulled away from the low table, all on its own in the shade of a large tree, its legs and back a curling wrought gold, the cushion an ivory white. Ronan had dreamed it all for her with care and attention to detail. He would fall asleep in this very clearing before he brought her in. Adam had usually been beside him, fussing with his tarot cards or doing physics homework. When Ronan would wake up, some new piece of furniture in his hand, Adam just raised an eyebrow and demanded that Ronan come help with number 7 from the workbook.

Those afternoons were sunlit and golden in his mind, and that simple joy had helped him to make this place a better place for Aurora.

“What were you two talking about, Mom?”

Aurora smiles at Adam, who is still sitting against the leg of her chair. “Nothing much. He knows what it is to love a dreamer.”

There is that word again. The one that Ronan tries to never think about in connection to Adam.

To Ronan’s surprise, Adam ducks his head, looking embarrassed. “I only wanted to say hello,” he tells Ronan. “While we were in the area.”

“Well, you said it,” Ronan says, and his voice comes out more harsh than he intended, torn raw by emotion.

“Ronan!” Aurora says again. “Be nice.”

“Yeah, Ronan,” Adam says, “be nice.”

Ronan gives him a dirty look.

"How much," Ronan grits out, "did you tell her."

Adam bites his lip, and Ronan is too irritated to even be distracted by it. He likes it when his Adam talks with Aurora. The last thing that he wants is for this Adam to get mixed up with her. She already gets confused, and loses time. Having some grown adult walking around, claiming to be Ronan's husband is hardly going to help.

"I didn't tell her anything."

"He didn't have to," Aurora says, and her voice is stern. Ronan feels like she just caught him stealing sweets before dinner. She runs her fingers over Ronan's short cropped hair. "You know, Ronan, dear. I am not stupid."

Ronan starts, and the motion jerks his head away from her hand. He regrets it, but the knowledge that Adam can see him stops him from putting his head back in her range. "I never thought you were," he says warily.

"I know that I am," she waves an airy hand. "Outside."

Ronan opens his mouth to say something, and she pinches his ear, just like she always did when he and Declan fought.

"This is not the opportunity for an ill-advised pun, dear," she says. When Ronan glances at Adam, Adam is grinning broadly.

"Yes, mother," Ronan says dutifully, and she lets go.

"I only meant, that I am outside time. Outside," she hesitates, "life." When Ronan opens his mouth to protest, she shakes her head. "No, don't protest. I don't need to know why. I know that you are looking after me. But, when your young man—" both Adam and Ronan splutter "wandered in here, I recognised him. In spirit."

Ronan makes a face. Aurora had never been utterly practical, but to hear her, even as a dream creature, phrasing it in such an otherworldly manner makes him uncomfortable.

"Don't make that expression, your face will get stuck like that," she chides. When Ronan looks up at her, he can see the laughter in her eyes.

"So what did you talk about?" he asks, because he has to know.

Aurora gives her a mysterious smile. "We have much in common, your Adam and I."

"He's not my fuc—he's not my Adam." Ronan misses the emphasis of a good swear.

Aurora only smiles at him, and curls her hand over his head again, like she wants to comfort him. "Not yet, darling."

"Not ever, if he keeps this up," Ronan snarls, glaring at Adam.

Adam makes a 'who, me?' gesture, and Ronan discreetly flips him the bird. Adam laughs.

“Who is your friend?” Aurora asks, looking up at the tree line. Ronan follows her gaze to Noah, standing beneath the entrance to Aurora’s secluded glade.

“This is Noah, Mom. I’ve told you about Noah.” He gestures, indicating that Noah should come in.

Her gaze goes distant, vague in that same way that Noah has. They can be good friends, Ronan thinks bitterly, a club for everyone who is barely tethered to this world. “I suppose you must have,” she says. “It’s lovely to see you.”

Noah steps forward, and he takes her hand like he intends to bow over it. “You as well, Mrs. Lynch. I’ve heard wonderful things.”

She laughs, bright enough that the whole clearing seems to echo with it. “Ronan, however did you find such lovely friends.”

Noah is giving Ronan the same teasing look Adam had.

“I can’t imagine,” Ronan says sarcastically, and Noah winks at him.

“We should probably go. Thank you for speaking with me, Mrs. Lynch,” Adam says politely. He stands, and she mimics him. Up close she barely reaches his shoulder. When did his mother get so small?

“It was my pleasure,” Aurora replies, with complete sincerity. She and Matthew were the only Lynches who could ever pull that off. What does it say about their family, that neither of them are even real.

No, not that. As his mother gives him another hug, utterly redundant since they just hugged a second ago, he can’t bear to think that she isn’t real. She is real. She is solid in his arms, warm under his hands. Real, just not ordinary. He kisses the top of her head, marveling again at how small she is.

“I hope to see you soon,” she says, seeing them to the edge of her glade like it’s the foyer at the Barns. What is it that keeps in here? Can she sense it—does she somehow know the extent she can walk before she ceases to be Aurora and just becomes a shell? Ronan is grateful for it, whatever it is.

Noah gives her a cheerful wave. “As soon as possible,” he promises, and Ronan wonders if either of them will even remember it in the morning.

As soon as they leave Aurora’s glade, Ronan grabs Adam’s arm. “What the hell are you doing?”

Adam yanks his arm free, and it brings attention to how strong he is, the way that his biceps flex as he pulls away. “I can’t say hello to your mother?”

“Not by yourself, you absolute creeper!” Ronan hisses.

“I just wanted to talk with her!”

Noah keeps pace with them, watching the conversation in silent interest.

“Well, don’t!”

“This may shock you to hear, Ronan, but as your husband I did, on occasion, speak to your mother.”

It jolts through him, the way it always does when Adam says the word husband.

“About what?”

“I don’t know, things!” Adam pushes past him, and Cabeswater is once again being irritatingly compliant around Adam, branches moving easily out of his way, roots underfoot flattening before he walks over them. All the world, aligned to his will.

“What kind of things?” Ronan demands. Adam wheels on him, leaning close enough into his space that Ronan steps back, his back pressed up against a tree.

“About what it’s like to love a dreamer,” Adam snaps. His gaze flickers over Ronan’s face, and the frustration seems to melt off Adam’s face. His eyes flick between Ronan's eyes and his lips. The moment between them feels abruptly charged. Ronan watches, transfixed, as Adam licks his lips. "She gets it, ok? No one else does." Adam takes a step back, then another. He doesn't look away from Ronan's eyes, until he abruptly turns on his heel to stride back through the trees.

“Damn,” Noah says, watching as Ronan sags momentarily against the tree. He feels breathless and achey, like coming down off the flu. He wants to chase after Adam and demand he explain himself. He wants to to chase after Adam and pin him to a fucking tree until he stops looking at Ronan like that. Like he could be everything.

“Shut up, Noah.” Ronan pushes off and follows Adam, purposefully not moving fast enough to catch up with him. He wishes that Noah were more solid, so that he could have the satisfaction of pushing past him.

“I’m just saying,” Noah says. “He is super into you.”

“He’s, like, 30.”

“You’re 17, it’s legal.”

Ronan makes a face. “Gross.”

"I've heard that having sex with older men is very sexy. They're so," Noah drops his voice into a fake sultry tone, "experienced."

The thought lingers in Ronan's head. Adam has been married for years. He knows what he likes in bed. Ronan swallows. He knows what _Ronan_ likes in bed.

Noah appears in front of him, grinning. “You like him!”

"Fuck off." Walking through Noah is like stepping through an ice cold shower, but it is entirely worth it for the indignant expression on Noah’s face.

“He’s a dick.”

“He’s your dick.” Noah winces. “Wait, no. I want to rephrase that.”

Ronan snorts. “You do that.”

Noah steps in beside him. “Seriously, you don’t like him even a little?”

Ronan thinks of spending the night with his own Adam, pressing cold toes into his ankle just to hear him yelp, the long nights on the floors of St. Agnes. He thinks of the way that his Adam looks at him, sometimes amused but more often disdainful, and nothing like how Adam looks at Blue. The way that this Adam looks at him, like his own Adam never has. Like Ronan could be everything.

But that has never been why. And the why hasn't changed. The way that Adam is stubborn and stupid and so smart that it makes Ronan's head spin sometimes. He loves the moments when Adam is comfortable enough to indulge himself, to be the arrogant little shit that Ronan knows that he is. He likes it when Adam laughs.

He doesn’t lie. “I like Adam. He is, sometimes, Adam.”

Noah makes a low, cooing noise. “That’s the cutest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“You repeat it, I’m running over your ghostly ass with my car.”

Noah cackles. “I’d like to see you try.”

Ronan rolls his eyes, and pushes through the trees. Adam has beaten him back to the clearing, and Gansey is looking up at him with accusing eyes.

“Where were you?” he demands.

“Went for a walk,” Ronan says. “Go back to the fishies.”

“Both of you?” Gansey’s look is speculative.

“Noah chaperoned,” Adam says. “Ronan’s virtue is safe.”

Gansey flops onto his back with a disbelieving noise. “Ronan’s virtue is never safe.”

Blue’s bubble of light pops. “What’s this about Ronan’s virtue?” she asks. That would get her attention, the little pervert.

“I hate literally all of you,” Ronan says, and drops back to the ground.

* * *

There is something solid, comforting, in the closed space of the Glens. It’s different from how Cabeswater had felt, pressing and needing and calling to him. He is starting to understand what Blue meant, when she said that he made the Glens, him and Ronan. It is his, and the energy that surrounds him is familiar and bolstering.

Blue sits across from him, legs crossed, their knees pressed together.

“Adam, I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say that lives literally depend on you learning this.”

“Wonderful,” Adam replies. “No pressure or anything.”

Blue turns his hand over on his leg so that his palm faces up and slowly traces his lifeline.

“I never had the gift, but I know the theory of palm reading,” she says. His palm feels shivery under her fingers.

Adam yanks his hand back. “I’d like to figure out my future for myself, thank you.”

Blue’s grin is sharp and sudden. “Oh, would you?”

Adam looks around at a magical world that he has created. And, beyond the treeline, a house, a life that was all his. A future that he isn't ready for.

He hunches his shoulders, curling them up around his ears. "I," he falters. "I don't want to know anything else." He swallows. "I wish I didn't know as much as I do now." It feels like a betrayal to say that, a slap in the face to the man in the house who loves Adam so much that it terrifies him.

Blue watches him, dark eyes steady on his face. "Is this life really so bad?"

Adam thinks of waking up, curled against Ronan’s back, face pressed into the warm cotton between Ronan’s shoulder blades, and shakes his head to rid himself of the sense memory. The future that awaits him. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s really not," Blue replies.

"What if this isn't the life I wanted?"

"The life you wanted with the infinite wisdom you possess at 18?" Blue asks. It's the first time that he has heard her sound so painfully adult—just as condescending and dismissive as every other adult he's met in his life; so sure that being 18 means he can't think for himself.

Adam bristles under it. "I'm not a child."

Blue shakes her head. "I know that, Adam. Of course I know that. But that doesn't mean that the life you have in your head is really the best thing for you." She sticks her tongue out, like tasting bad food. "I sound like my mother."

Adam lifts his shoulders and drops them down in a shrug. "I only ever wanted to get out of Henrietta."

Blue tilts into him, her shoulder a comforting weight against his arm. "I know. But you've always been thinking of things you wanted to run from. Maybe you should start thinking about what you want to stay for."

Frustration boils up in Adam, and he digs his fingers into a ground, feeling grass come up under his nails. "I don't want to stay for anyone!" he snaps.

Blue sighs, and her whole frame seems to shake with it. “Adam. I am not here to be your relationship counselor. Literally ever. That is what you have Gansey for. But I need you to listen to me right now.”

Almost against his will, Adam meets her eyes.

“You seem to think that being married or being in some kind of relationship means giving up your sense of self. It doesn’t.” She hesitates. “Well, unless it’s a shitty, abusive relationship, and then you need to get the hell out. But my point is, look at me.”

Adam looks. It’s just Blue, a little older, a little wiser. Her hair is longer, her shoulders more broad. She carries confidence like it weighs nothing, and smiles more easily than he is used to from her. She’s still the Blue he knows.

“I used to be terrified of being with Gansey.”

“The kiss of death thing couldn’t have helped,” Adam cuts in, and she shoves him. He sways under her push, but stays upright.

“Yeah, that complicated things. But my point is, I’m not anyone else because I love Gansey. I’m me, I’m Blue Sargent. I’m not saying you should jump Ronan as soon as you get back, but stop seeing him as a death sentence for your independence, ok? He knows you better than that.”

He does, too. That’s part of what Adam finds so terrifying. Ronan knows him more than Adam has ever wanted to be known. Sometimes it feels like something has crawled under his skin, settled in there to stay, and he can’t shake it out, no matter how much he tries.

Blue slaps her palms on her legs. “Alright, that’s enough emotional bullshit. I need you to pull in here, there are bigger things at stake than your personal drama.”

Adam makes a face. “I’m trying.”

Blue mimics his face back at him. “Try harder.”

Adam takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.

“Good,” Blue says. He can feel her hands, resting on his knees, palm up. “Concentrate on the feeling of the Glens.”

Adam breathes in, in, out. He feels the ground under him, the soft grass a light cushion to the firm ground. He can feel the trees around him, strong, too old for something he supposedly created in the last ten years. They’re whispering in Latin. He can hear it in his deaf ear, but he can’t make out of the words. They’re too indistinct, too faint, and his Latin isn’t good enough. Yet. This entire day feels like an exercise in yet. His breath lines up with the wind. In, out.

“Good,” Blue says. “Try to grow something.”

That doesn’t sound like real magic. It sounds like something easy, something he has already done. Adam doesn’t move, doesn’t hold out a hand over the ground like he feels like he maybe should. He thinks instead of all the wards Blue has been getting him to learn. He thinks of the dangers of magic, of Ronan lying broken and bleeding at his feet in a church. He thinks of Gansey, dying from an unknowable danger Adam is responsible for. He thinks of how badly he wants to protect them, to save them. How he would awaken the leyline a hundred times over to keep them safe, how he would wall them in behind thorns like Sleeping Beauty in her tower.

He feels the pickle of sharp edges against his leg, against both legs. When he opens his eyes, Blue is grinning.

“I always wondered where you picked up that trick,” she says. Adam is sitting in the middle of a small field of prickly, thorny plants. They shoot individual stems into the air, each one lines with sharp ridges.

“What is it?” He runs a finger down the flat center. It’s smooth, almost synthetic feeling under his hand.

“Aloe. Protection and healing. It looks all sharp and prickly, but it’s one of the best things to use in helping people. For healing, of course.” She raises an eyebrow at him. Adam gives her a dirty look. "It's a particular trademark of yours."

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course not,” she says. “Magic is, of course, a completely impersonal art form.”

Adam wraps his hand around one of the shoots, feeling the prickle of the sharp edges in his palm. “I’m not prickly.”

Strictly speaking, Adam doesn’t think that Blue needs to laugh that hard.

“Ok, ok,” she says, righting herself from where she had slumped to the ground in her amusement. “Seriously. This is good. You’re good with plant magic, and that’s a great place to start. Plants are great anchors for other spells. Wards, for example.” Adam groans, and Blue nudges her leg against his. “Don’t make that noise at me. This is serious. You’re good at putting magic in plants. I’m shit at it. I do better with things in my own head.”

“Shocking,” Adam mutters. Blue ignores him.

“Wards are so crucial. When you get back, we’re going to be up against what is almost literally the united forces of evil. And, Adam, I’ll be honest. You’re really awful at any sort of offensive magic.”

“Thanks,” Adam mutters.

“That’s what you’ll have me and Ronan for. But we will need you to protect us. You are better at defensive magic than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Adam straightens, brightening under her praise. “Yeah?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, you’re still total shit at attacks.”

“Right,” Adam says. He thinks back to the few times he’s used magic outside of Cabeswater. The crumbling walls of Aglionby. His father. Walls, built up around himself. His strong suit, apparently. He could have told her that. He's not something that he should be good at. He's not sure that he wants to be good at it. He's not sure that he knows how to be anything else.

“You’ve done magic before, usually on accident. We’re trying to make it so you do those things on purpose. Picture a wall.”

Adam’s mind immediately calls up an image of the walls of his bedroom at the trailer. Cold, suffocating. Keeping him in more than it could ever keep anyone out. Solid, for all of that.

Something wet hits him in the face, and his eyes fly open, blinking water from his eyes. “What the hell?”

Blue tosses something that glows faintly from hand to hand. “Magical water balloon.” She lobs it overhand at a nearby tree. It breaks on contact, splashing water everywhere. She flicks her wrist, and another one appears in her hand. It looks like a large marble, almost translucent, roughly the size of a softball. “What were you picturing?”

“A wall!” Adam says, glaring down at his wet shirt.

“Picture a different wall,” Blue says, merciless. “Come on, let’s stand up.” She gets to her feet with an effortless grace, not disturbing the globe in her hand.

“What do you mean, a different wall?” Adam demands, clambering up with considerably less grace. “It’s a wall!”

“It’s never just a wall,” Blue replies. “I like to imagine the front windows at 300 Fox Way. I can see out, but it’s still solid. People can come in, if I want them to, and my family is in with me.”

Adam grimaces. He’s not sure he has any walls like that.

“Chop, chop,” Blue says, hoisting the water bubble like a seasoned pitcher.

Adam closes his eyes, searching his mind for something that would work. The water hits him in the chest this time.

“I wasn’t ready!” he snaps. Blue shrugs, unrepentant.

“Oops.”

She already has another bubble in her hand. Adam closes his eyes, and imagines the walls of Monmouth. Strong, brick. Warmer than it ever got at the trailer, all his friends on the inside.

The bubble still hits him in the face.

“Again,” Blue commands.

He should have guessed. Monmouth was Gansey’s place, Gansey’s palace. It was never quite the safe haven for Adam that Gansey had always wanted it to be. Adam imagines the walls of St. Agnes next. Not as strong, prone to drafts and peeling paint in places, but his. Entirely his. Maybe the first thing that in his life that has ever been his.

When the bubble hits him this time, it hit him in the nose hard enough to make tears spring to his eyes. He swears, and gives Blue a dirty look.

"Sorry," Blue says, not looking it. "I wasn't expecting you to stop the magic."

Adam pushes his wet hair off his face. “What?”

"You didn't stop the bubble, but something you did stopped the water from bursting. That's," she considers, "better. I mean, obviously the goal is to stop the water ballons, you're getting there."

Adam shakes his head. “Let’s try again.”

He imagines the walls of the Barns. It’s not his place, not even Ronan’s anymore, but he’s always felt safe there. Useful. Needed.

The bubble bounces off his forehead this time. It hurts, but not as bad this time, and the water doesn't burst. Blue sends another bubble at him as soon as he opens his eyes, and this one splashes into his face, making him cough and splutter.

“Come on!”

“I’m unpredictable,” Blue says. “Try creating a wall. It doesn’t have to be real.”

Plant magic, she’d said. He thinks of Cabeswater, of thorns standing between him and his father.

When he closes his eyes this time, he imagine a high line of bushes, stretching above his head. It’s not any plant he can put a name to, but it’s not thorny. He seems to have enough thorns on his own. He doesn't want to be Sleeping Beauty, isolated as the world passes by her. Through the gaps in the leaves, he can hear laughter. Gansey and Noah. He can hear them, not as walled off as he feels sometimes. Blue’s shriek of laughter, Ronan’s chuckle. The bushes look soft, but strong. Not impenetrable.

It’s still him, he’s locked in with anyone, but he can hear them. The wind carries their voices to him. If he wanted, he could go through the wall. It was his, his creation, it would part for him.

“Well?” he asks, his eyes still closed. In his mind, he presses a hand to the hedge. It gives under his palm, releasing the clean scent of pine, but it holds strong.

When Blue doesn’t reply, he opens his eyes. Her bubbles are bouncing off an invisible barrier. As he watches, she leans back, winding up in an over-exaggerated movement, and lets loose. The water breaks against the barrier, which shimmers gold when it hits.

“Congrats, magician,” Blue says, beaming. "You did it."

Adam smiles back. Wards, protection. It’s a lot like all the things he never knew he wanted. No one would touch him without his permission. He would be safe. And if he works hard enough, he can make sure that his friends are safe too.

“Let’s try something new,” Blue says. “Try this now. Remember that light thing you made while you were being all sparkly over Ronan?”

“I wasn’t being sparkly!” Adam protests.

“Yeah, you were a beacon of coolness. A real rock.” Blue says sarcastically. “Focus. Try to imagine putting that light into an aloe plant.”

“That sounds like a lot of bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, most of magic sounds a lot like bullshit. You get used to it.”

Adam tries to do as she asked, tries to imagine the glowing sphere of light he had pulled into his hands around Ronan as lighting up the plants. He can’t. He tries, again, again.

When he opens his eyes, the plants are frustratingly plain, and Blue is watching him. Adam curls his hands, then relaxes them.

“It’s fine, Adam. You can’t do everything perfectly.”

“I can try.”

Blue’s mouth twitches upwards. “That’s the funny thing about trying. It doesn’t always mean doing. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Adam snaps.

Blue’s spine goes rigid. “Is it?”

“I didn’t—”

“Adam, I spent most of my life thinking that if I fell in love with anyone, they would die, and it would be my fault. I grew up knowing for a fact that I didn’t have what my family did, that I was the only one who didn’t have this gift. I grew up thinking that college was a pipe dream and I had days where I thought I would work at Nino’s pizza for my entire life.

"Now, Ronan and Gansey can be as tolerant of your adolescent outbursts as they want, but I put up with enough of that bullshit when I was actually an adolescent. So tell me, again, why it is so easy for me to say?”

Adam fights the urge to lean away from her. “I.” He closes his mouth. Swallows. Opens it. “I’m sorry.”

Blue sighs, and her face softens. “Look, Adam. Your life has been shit. And that sucks. But you could make it better, if you just let yourself have nice things.”

Adam stares down at the aloe. “I’m not sure I know how.” He drops his hand down to the ground, feeling the softness of the grass under his fingers. He feels the grass shift beneath him, pushing back like a cat pressing into a scratch. Surprised, he lifts his hand. A sprig of mistletoe sits, curling up from the grass.

Blue smiles. “I think you know better than you think.”

* * *

“Stop the car,” Ronan says suddenly. Gansey glances over at him, unswayed by what he probably sees as a typical Ronan suggestion to endanger the lives of everyone in the Pig.

Ronan meets his eyes, feeling something urgent pressing against his breast bone. His blood is pounding. Whatever it is must show on his face, because Gansey jerks the wheel hard enough that Blue slides sideways in the backseat and swears heavily.

Someone honks as they fly past the Pig, but Ronan doesn’t give one single fuck. Gansey only barely slows the car down to a stop before Ronan has the door open. “Don’t wait up,” he says. He means it sarcastically, but it comes out sincere. He slams the door so that he doesn’t have to listen to Gansey’s reply.

“Ronan—” Gansey starts, but Blue stops him. Ronan looks back to see her climbing into the passenger seat. Ronan can’t make out what she says over the roar of the Pig’s engine, so he turns away and keeps walking. After a moment, he hears the telltale sound of the car’s wheels against gravel, of the transmission sliding into first as Gansey takes off.

It’s not late enough in the year for the evenings to be cool, but it’s not as glaringly hot now that the sun has gone down. It’s still a good deal warmer than the perfectly temperate air of Cabeswater. They had stayed there until Adam had finished his warding, until he had started to sway and Gansey and Ronan had to help him to sit. The sun had only just started to set when they returned to the camero, even though it had been bright as high noon in Cabeswater. The slip and slide of time in Cabeswater couldn’t always work in their favor.

Ronan lets himself fall into the rhythm of his feet on the ground, the glint of the setting sun in his eyes, the evening breeze on his shoulders. They had dropped Adam off at St. Agnes at Adam’s insistence. Ten years had done nothing to make Adam any less stubborn, and Ronan was frustrated to find that he was just as charmed by it from Adam aged 28 as he is when Adam is 18.

The urge to just shake Adam until he just accepted that they wanted to help him was there too, which didn’t make Ronan feel any better.

He is only about five minutes from St. Agnes, if he walks fast. Three days, Adam had said. This was day number two. The last night, and Ronan doesn’t want Adam to spend it alone, in the too-hot, too-cold attic of a church he doesn’t even attend.

But no, that isn’t entirely it. Ronan watches his feet hit the asphalt, feels the rush of the occasional car as it hurtles past him on the road. It isn’t purely for unselfish reasons. He and Adam haven’t talked. Not really. Gansey lingered, and Blue learned her magic and Noah was as ever-present as he could be these days, and Ronan has been unable to press a straight answer from Adam.

(Was that all he wanted to press from Adam? And Ronan shook his head to chase the thought away.)

Maybe now, worn out from the wards of Cabeswater, Adam will talk. And if he won’t, well, Ronan is no stranger to Adam when he’s tired and overworked. It’ll be almost like talking to the Adam that Ronan is more familiar with. But Ronan needs... something. Something from Adam other than humor and sarcasm and sly remarks. The few moments where Adam has let something real slip through feel tentative and fragile.

Adam clearly likes the life he has in 2025, clearly wants to get back to it, and it strikes Ronan to the bone. He has never known Adam to be anything other than desperate to get away. He isn’t sure if he’s ever heard Adam use the word home before. He must have, surely, but if he had it was by rote. It’s never been heavy with meaning the way this Adam says it now.

St. Agnes is empty at this time of night, and Ronan is familiar with every line and tread in the parking lot. The terrible Hondoyota is taking up its usual residence as far from the front doors of the church as it can get. It always feels like Adam wants to take up as little room as possible, as though inconveniencing someone even that distance of a single car space might get him kicked out.

It makes Ronan ache for him. He wants to shake Adam and tell him that he has a right to exist, to demand space and time and anything in the world.

The door that leads up to the attic creaks open at Ronan's touch, and he wonders if Adam is expecting him, waiting for him.

Ronan jumps the one creaky stair up to the attic out of habit. Nights upon nights of coming here late have pressed the motion into him, the instinctive move making sure that he disturbs Adam as little as possible. But he thinks of the way that this Adam gives him these sideways, knowing looks and he steps back onto the step, hard. The creak of the wood echoes up and down the stairs. It’s beyond petty, but still utterly satisfying.

He doesn’t knock on the door. He never does. It’s the sort of manners he wants to be known for deliberately eschewing. Gansey hates it. Adam has never said anything about it one way or the other, but then, Ronan has never caught him doing anything that Adam would be embarrassed by. (Sometimes, Ronan wonders if Adam ever does those sort of things, or if Adam is just as cold and implacable as Ronan sometimes thinks he is.)

Adam is always studying, or reading, or poring over his tarot cards. Once or twice, Ronan has come in on Adam sleeping. On those occasions he closes the door with more care than he opened it and settles down to work on his own homework until Adam either jolts awake or Ronan decides it’s time to leave. Once or twice, he’s settled into the floor for the night, and Adam has never commented on waking up to find Ronan camped out in his room.

Ronan has never thought that was weird until now.

Adam is stretched out on the twin mattress, hands tucked behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t look surprised to see Ronan, which Ronan finds just as infuriating as he finds everything about this Adam.

Adam rolls his head on his neck to look over at Ronan. “Hey.”

Ronan ignores him, dropping down to sit in his customary spot near the head of the mattress. There isn’t enough mattress to lean against, and the turned-over plastic crate that Adam uses as a bedside table is only barely stable enough to support Adam’s lamp and alarm clock. He leans back on his hands and glowers up at the ceiling.

There is nothing interesting up there, nothing that he hasn’t seen a hundred times before.

Adam exhales, not quite a sigh, but more than a breath. It’s not a sound that Ronan knows, not like the way that Adam will sometimes click his tongue against his teeth when he is concentrating, or the hard exhale through his nose when he’s irritated and trying not to show it. These small things, these minor differences that make this Adam a stranger are what disquiet Ronan the most.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to come or not,” Adam says after a while.

Ronan flexes his fingers. He can feel the splinters on the ground digging into his palms. He would pay to refloor this entire room if Adam would accept it. He would buy him a hundred carpets from Turkey or Italy or wherever people buy fancy rugs from, until Adam sinks ankle-deep in fabric every time he takes a step. But Adam is Adam, and so he wears worn-thin socks on splintered floor, in a room with barely enough air to breathe at the height of summer.

“I wasn’t,” he replies.

“What changed your mind?”

Ronan doesn’t have an answer for that. He’s spent the past two days just wanting this to be over, wanting to interact with this Adam as little as possible. But here he is. He doesn't know what he wants, from any Adam. He doesn't even know what changed his mind, what made it so urgent that he be here now.

“There is something you’re not telling me.”

He doesn’t look at Adam, but he can hear the way Adam's mouth quirks in the tone of his voice. “Ronan, there are a lot of things I’m not telling you.”

Ronan feels irritation roll through him, familiar and almost comforting. He lets it go. Instead of punching Adam like he would dearly like to, he leans up enough to drive his elbow into the mattress. He doesn’t want to touch this Adam directly, doesn’t want to nudge him like he would Gansey or even his own Adam. Something about the touch of his hands on Adam’s skin feels more meaningful than it ever has before.

“Not just you,” he growls, frustrated at his own inability to articulate this. “All of you. You and Blue and the Adam who belongs here.” Not his Adam. He is careful not to say his Adam. “There is a secret, and you're all keeping it from me."

“Me, Blue and your Adam." Adam repeats slowly, like he has no idea what Ronan is talking about. The possessive pronoun hangs between them, the word that Ronan had so carefully avoided. "What about Gansey? Is he in on this secret?"

Ronan shifts so that he can rest his head on the edge of the mattress, looking at Adam upside down. He thinks about it for a long moment.

“No. Not Gansey.” He's sure about this, but he's not sure why. A few months ago, he would have said that Gansey just didn't keep secrets from him, but he knows better now. They're all keeping secrets. “But it has something to do with him.”

Even upside down, he can see the way that Adam’s mouth twists.

“There is something,” he presses, suddenly sure. "Something about Gansey, and none of you want to talk about it."

“Yes.” The word sounds pressed out and flat, a shirt wrung out too many times.

Ronan falters. He hadn’t expected Adam to cop to it so quickly. He surges up in one quick, angry move, kneeling on the ground next to Adam’s bed. “Tell me.”

Adam meets his eyes, and in that moment he looks like the Adam that Ronan knows—old and tired and desperately sad. “I can’t.”

Ronan clenches his hands tight, because he makes a point not to strike out around Adam, even when he wants to. He wants to throw his fist into the wall next to Adam’s head, to pin him down and make Adam tell him. But he hasn’t lost control around Adam yet, and he doesn’t plan to now. Adam has had enough of that in his life.

“Why the hell not?” he growls, feeling the anger simmer just beneath his skin. Adam sits up, and Ronan hadn’t realized how much he was looming over him until he has to move out of the way to make room for him.

For a moment, the way that Adam is holding himself strikes Ronan as wrong, wrong, wrong. Then Adam speaks, and it hits him. “I think,” Adam swallows, “I think that your Adam will tell you, when he gets back. But I can’t. It’s a problem for the now, Ronan, and I’m just a solution for the future.” He sounds so tired that Ronan can’t even hold onto the anger. The problem with Adam's posture, with his tone and his eyes and everything, is that Adam isn't angry. Ronan is so used to Adam meeting him push for push, word for word. Adam never backs down from him, and he never lets Ronan back down. He's seen Adam tired. He's never seen him step away from a fight. Not with Ronan.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says into the silence that stretches between them, and Ronan tries not to show how much the words unsettle him.

He lets himself fall onto the bed next to Adam and Adam lets him, moving until they are both leaning against the wall. He digs his fingers into the thin sheet of Adam’s bed and releases them. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize before.”

Adam winces. “That's probably accurate, actually. But, I am now."

“My,” Ronan drawls, sarcasm heavy on his tongue, “how you have changed.”

"It's called growing up," Adam says.

This Adam would never get into a shopping cart just because Ronan asked it of him. This Adam is a stranger, and Ronan needs to stop letting himself forget it.

“I don’t like it.”

"Well, I didn't do it to make you comfortable," Adam snaps, and there is more of the spark that Ronan loves.

Ronan barks a laugh, surprised and delighted. That;s his Adam.

Adam stares at him. "You like it," he says, and the words come out stunned.

Ronan lets his amusement flow through him, carrying away his tension. "Like what?"

Adam is still staring at him like he's never seen him before. "You like it when I'm," he gestures, "when I'm mad at you!"

Ronan snorts. "Yeah, right."

"No, you do!" Adam sits up straighter. "I can tell. You think it's fun when I'm pissy."

Pissy is very different from mad. Ronan hates it when Adam is mad at him. But pissy? When Adam puffs up like a wet cat and gets into Ronan's face, bold and confident and not in the least bit afraid of taking up space. Yeah. Ronan likes that.

And he's taking that to his grave.

"You look like an angry pigeon," he tells Adam. This is the exact thing that he means, Adam leaning into his space, pushing, pushing. This Adam has never looked more attractive than he does now. Never looked more like the Adam that Ronan knows.

"And you like it," Adam says slowly. "I always thought that was a sex thing."

Ronan chokes on his own spit, and he can feel himself go violently red. "What!"

To his surprise, he can see the back of Adam's neck flush. "You know," Adam makes a small, weaker copy of the gesture from earlier, "the whole, you're hot when you're mad, angry sex thing."

Which is. Well.

Ronan can picture it. Adam, red faced and snarling, in the way he gets when he is defensive, but not quite mad. The way Adam would put his hands on Ronan's chest and push. In this imagining, there is a bed, and Ronan tumbles down onto and Adam follows him.

In that mood, Adam wouldn't be careful. He would take, and take, and take. He would bite his kisses into Ronan's mouth, maybe press teeth into Ronan's neck. He wouldn't let Ronan reciprocate, just try and drive Ronan wild. Adam hates being out of control, and his answer would be to make Ronan just as out of control. Ronan wouldn't be able to do anything but lie there under Adam's lips and hands, panting.

Adam would fit his hands to Ronan's hips, keep him from moving until Ronan was crazy with it, until Ronan would surge up and push Adam down. Adam would make an angry noise into his mouth, hips pressing up and—

"Ronan!"

Ronan startles. When he looks up, Adam is smirking at him.

"So it is a sex thing?"

"It's not a sex thing!"

Adam picks a loose thread off the bedspread. "I know that face, Ronan."

"It's not a sex thing." And the thing is, it's really not. It's just an Adam thing.

Adam still looks skeptical, and Ronan isn't sure which is worse, Adam thinking that he has some kind of kink for Adam being mad at him, or telling the truth.

The latter sounds way worse.

Ronan doesn't lie. That doesn't mean he has to offer the truth.

"Ok, fine, it's not a sex thing," Adam sounds patronizing, and yep, there is the urge to hit him again. "What is it?"

Ronan tilts his head up. Adam has told him nothing so far. Ronan owes him at least as much.

There is the noise of irritation that Ronan is so familiar with, the exhale through the nose. “Why are you here, Ronan?”

Ronan gives the bedspread a filthy look, ignoring the way that Adam is twisting the loose thread between his long fingers. “I thought I might get a straight answer from you, for once. I was fucking wrong, apparently.”

He makes a move, not entirely sure he’s going to leave but at least wanting to get off the bed. Adam catches him around the wrist.

Everything goes still. Ronan turns his head to look at where Adam’s skin touches his. Adam is darker than him, and the pale white of Ronan’s wrist stands out sharply in comparison. The grip is firm, strong, but it doesn’t hurt. He could break out of it if he wants to. He doesn’t think that Adam has ever grabbed him before either.

Then Adam lets go, and the moment is broken.

“I know that I haven’t exactly been fair to you,” Adam says slowly.

Ronan settles his weight back onto the bed. “No shit.”

Adam winces. “It’s not on purpose. I don't mean to—I just," he trails off, then shrugs.

Ronan isn't willing to let him off the hook. “So you’re just a complete asshole on accident?”

“We can’t all try as hard as you do,” Adam replies, waspish.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan says without malice. He likes to think he has cultivated being an asshole enough that it comes naturally.

“I’m being selfish,” Adam says, and it comes out like a confession. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It had been five years since the last time I was selfish. He doesn’t look at Ronan when he says it.

“Selfish,” Ronan repeats skeptically. “Being stuck in the past with a bunch of teenagers is your idea of a good time then?”

When he turns his head to see Adam’s reaction to this, Adam is just watching him. The look on his face is more open than Ronan has seen from him yet, and it makes Ronan uncomfortable. He looks nothing like Adam, and entirely too much like Adam. Ronan returns his gaze to the bedspread.

“Did you know, it’s easier to talk to you about this shit than him sometimes?” Adam says instead. He picks absently at another loose thread in the sheets. His bed is going to be empty when the other Adam gets back. “I remember that from the last time too. When I was younger and he was older. It doesn’t,” he laughs a little, “it doesn’t feel real. I can say anything, and it won’t matter.”

The words feel like a sucker punch. “Thanks a lot,” Ronan snarls, trying to hide how much it hurts. This Adam has shaken up every bit of his life, has made Ronan feel flayed open and wild and exposed, and it doesn't even matter to him.

Adam looks at him, and his expression goes flat. "I don't mean it like that."

Ronan curls his legs up to his chest. "How did you mean it?"

Adam searches his face, and Ronan doesn’t know what he’s looking for, or what he finds. "In the future, it seemed so easy for him." He laughs. "For me, I suppose. There was this whole life there, and there was nothing I could say, or do, to fuck it up.

"And now I'm here, and there's you. And it feels like a moment out of time, and I can do anything."

Ronan snorts.

Adam looks at him from under his eyelashes. It’s a very effective look, and all the worse because Ronan is fairly certain that in this instance he doesn’t mean it as a flirtation. “I told you it was selfish.”

Ronan glares at him. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to live,” Adam says, and it’s so honest, so cutting that Ronan wants to flinch away from it. “And I’d like it if you were happy.”

"Yeah, right," Ronan mutters. He doesn't know if he even remembers what happy is.

Adam leans forward. “I mean it,” he says, so earnest it makes Ronan want to punch him in his confident, charming face.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, anger bubbling up under his skin. He rises up on his knees, kneeling over Adam. “What do you want,” he leans in, bracketing his arms over Adam’s head, “from me?”

He feels curiously detached from his own body. Adam is staring up at him, blue eyes wide in his face. In this moment, Ronan can almost forget that this is a stranger, that this isn’t the Adam he has known for almost two years.

“You’ve been flirting with me,” he says, suddenly sure that it’s true. It’s not just teasing, not just Adam being an ass. “What do you want?”

He swings a leg over Adam’s, stretched out over the mattress, kneeling over him completely. He could never push his own Adam like this. He understands, suddenly, what Adam means by no consequences. "A moment out of time?" he says. "I can give you that."

“You’re seventeen,” Adam says, and his voice is soft. Ronan licks his lips, and feels a surge of irritation when Adam doesn’t follow the movement with his eyes.

“That’s legal in Virginia,” Ronan says, leaning closer. He can feel Adam’s breath on his lips. His own Adam would never know. This Adam will be gone in a day, and Ronan will know what it’s like to kiss him.

Adam flinches back. “That’s not what I meant!”

“We’re already married.” Ronan presses closer, presses his mouth against Adam’s. Adam’s mouth is open, and his lips are dry. Ronan knows how to kiss, but he’s not sure he knows how to kiss someone like Adam. He knows how to kiss like a fight, like an argument he wants to win. But hell, Adam’s the one who married him, he probably doesn’t have an issue with the way that Ronan kisses.

He bites at Adam’s mouth when Adam doesn’t pull back, suddenly desperate to get some sort of response, any response. Adam makes a low noise in his throat and fits his hands on Ronan’s hips, surging up so that their mouths are on more of a level.

Ronan has thought about kissing Adam. He’s thought about pressing him down on this same ratty mattress, licking into his mouth. He’s thought about being careful and being rough, about Adam pushing back like in every argument they’ve ever had and he’s thought about what it would be like if Adam would just for once let Ronan do something nice for him.

He’s never imagined it like this, where Adam knows exactly what he is doing. Adam raises his hand, cups Ronan’s face in his broad palm. His thumb fits just under the hinge of Ronan’s jaw, and when Adam tightens his grip just so, Ronan’s knees go liquid. He moans into Adam’s mouth, shameless and unrepentant. This is an Adam who knows exactly what Ronan likes.

He probably knows better than Ronan knows himself, and the thought makes Ronan press even closer, wanting to climb into Adam’s skin. He can’t smell the familiar tang of car oil, but the scent of dark woods and mist and whatever it is that is just Adam is still there. It’s intoxicating.

Ronan pulls out of the kiss to breathe in against Adam’s neck, and follows it up with a kiss, a bite. For a moment, Adam tilts his head back, allowing access, a groan falling from his mouth. Ronan wants to make him make that sound again, wants to take it and frame it on his fucking wall. He drags his teeth down the column of Adam’s throat, a possessive move to mark, to claim ownership.

“Ronan,” Adam gasps. The hand on Ronan’s face drops away, flitting back to his hip and tightening there.

“Yeah,” Ronan growls, and bites again.

“We—stop.” Then Adam uses his grip on Ronan’s hips to push him away.

The words come through a fog, and Ronan bites again. He doesn’t want Adam to be talking. He wants Adam to make that noise again, to feel Adam’s hands on his bare skin.

Adam makes a stuttered little noise, not the same groan as before. “Ronan, stop!” He shoves again.

The angle is wrong—Ronan could let his hips be guided away and still reach Adam with his lips, with his teeth. But it feels like a shock of cold water, and he jerks back.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demands. Adam has a mark blooming under his jaw, his lips are swollen red and wet. He looks not quite like every wet dream Ronan doesn’t want to remember having, but close. So close.

“I’m not doing this with you,” Adam says. Ronan is familiar with his inflection, the carefully controlled tone with the syllables going very Henrietta in the middle. It the way that Adam talks when he wants to make something true just by saying it with enough confidence.

"Why the fuck not!" Ronan snarls, feeling humiliation curl in his stomach, hot and bitter. "I know it's not an age thing. I bet lots of guys your age would kill to fuck a teenager."

Adam recoils back, actually recoils. Ronan feels himself mirror the gesture, shoved back by the strength of Adam's revulsion.

"That." Adam has to swallow twice to get himself to continue, and Ronan hates himself a little for the way that he watches the bob of Adam's throat. "That is why I won't do this with you."

Ronan snarls. "What the FUCK, Adam. I'm here, I want you. Why won't you just fucking take this, for once in your life." He can feel his chance slipping from his hands, and he wishes he could feel more surprised by it. Even this Adam, married to him, even he—Ronan clenches his eyes shut.

"Because I'm in love with you!" Adam shouts and the words sound unwilling, pulled from inside him and shoved violently into the world.

Ronan reacts to them like he would to a punch, almost falling off of Adam's lap as he pulls back.

"What."

Adam drags a weary hand over his face and gently moves Ronan off of him, so that Ronan has most of his weight resting on the mattress. "God, Ronan. It wouldn't be—it wouldn't be fucking you. I'm not going to use you for sex. Do you not," he laughs, and the sound comes out hard and bitter. "Do you really not get that I'm in love with you?"

Ronan just stares at him, feeling ice cold and frozen all over. He's not sure he can bear to hear this.

"You want this," Adam gestures at himself, "you want me because I'm no strings. Because I'll be gone tomorrow and I'm almost what you want. Because you think that you can't have what you really want."

Oh fuck no. Ronan can't hear this, he can't.

"Fuck this," he mutters, not even able to look at Adam. "If I'd known you were going to be such a pussy about it, I wouldn't have come here."

Because he hasn’t even been thinking about it like that. It was just—it wasn’t supposed to be like that. He just wanted, just for once, to kiss Adam and know that he wouldn’t pull back. And now he has—well. He doesn’t even have that. And the way that Adam had looked at him. He had wanted that. He still wants it, desperately.

"I did the same thing, you know," Adam says. Ronan goes still. The paint on the far wall is peeling, and he traces the line of it with his eyes. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest. God, it hurts. "When I was 18, and all I wanted was to get out of Henrietta, but there was you.

“And then I woke up in the future, and we were already married, and it just seemed like it would be so much easier. I thought I could just get over it. I would—well, I'm not sure what I thought was going to happen. But he stopped me. And at the time, I was so pissed when he—you, turned me down. I get it now though. It's not fair to you. It's not what you want."

Ronan jumps when feels Adam's hand on his.

"I'm sorry that I've been flirting with you. It's just—there is this memory of you, of how you were at seventeen. And I was, there was so much other shit going on. And I knew you liked me."

Ronan makes a strangled groan and wonders if Adam would stop him if he tried to suffocate himself in Adam's sheets. God. Adam knows. And the way this Adam says _knew_ , heavy with inflection. _His_ Adam knows.

Knows, and has done nothing.

Adam continues, ignoring Ronan's reaction. "But I never thought of it as something real. As something that could be real. I didn't think that you could ever really want me. And even though we're literally married, I can't just forget those things I thought at this age.

"And now I'm here, and we're married in the future. But, you're still you. And you're my husband, now or in the future. And, when I see him in you, now I can see everything I missed when I was here, 18 and stupid as hell. And it's," his hand tightens on Ronan's, "intoxicating."

Ronan rips his hand out from under Adam's. "But you aren't going to anything about it, are you?"

He’s furious, and it feels like it has been simmering under his skin for hours, arousal transmuting into shame and anger and humiliation. He hadn’t put it in words like Adam has, but he had thought that he could have—something. A token, a stolen moment.

No matter what this Adam says, Ronan can't imagine that he will ever have this with his own Adam. He wants what he can take.

He stares Adam down, waiting for a response. Waiting for the denial he now knows to expect. He doesn’t know why it hurts this bad. He should have known.

Adam just looks at him, sad and a bit wistful. "No. I'm not." When he meets Ronan's eyes, his gaze is level. "I've been a terrible boyfriend. I hope," he swallows again, "I hope that I'm a better husband. But I've done some really shitty things, and I think that if I let anything happen here, it would be the shittiest thing I could ever do."

Ronan snorts. "I dunno. Not letting anything happen feels pretty shitty too."

Adam flinches, and his shoulders hunch in. "I know."

"No!" Ronan snaps. "No, you really don't. You come in, and you tease, and you flirt. And you act like you want me, and you're the worst kind of tease." He hears his own voice catch, and it's mortifying. "And you talk about love and about being married, and it's too much and it's everything I want and you won't do anything. Because you don't even want me, and I don't see that ever changing."

His chest heaves, and Adam just looks at him, looking shattered.

"I don't want to be married," Ronan spits, for the sheer pleasure of watching the way Adam recoils from it. Ronan wants to let the words hang there, wants to tell Adam that he was right about everything, that it was only a sex thing, wants to hurt Adam like Adam is hurting him.

But Adam is breathing slow and steady, and Ronan recognises it from when Adam is trying not to lose it.

"I wouldn't want to be married to me either," Adam says softly. "I never understood why you did."

'Neither do I,' Ronan wants to say, because that's where it would hurt the most. But there is a flush high on Adam's cheeks, and even with Adam's control, Ronan had heard the Henrietta in his tone. He can't do it.

He stands, looking down at Adam for a long moment. He wants to take it back. He feels the ridiculous urge to say something comforting, something telling Adam he can't imagine him ever being a shitty boyfriend.

The thing it, he really can imagine it. Adam, losing his temper. Adam, missing dates for work. Adam, putting school ahead of Ronan time and time again. Adam, being stubborn to the point of stupidity, driving Ronan insane. Adam, being Adam in all the ways Ronan already knows him. The thing is, Ronan already knows that Adam can be an asshole, that he can be frustrating and forgetful and that he has more of a temper than he wants anyone to know.

And Ronan likes him anyway.

"I'm 17," he says instead. "I don't want to be married to anyone. Not just you, just—anyone." He hesitates, and Adam still won't look at him.

"I'm glad we're married in the future," he says, because that's as close as he can get to the full truth. "If it has to be anyone, I'm glad it's you."

Adam just looks tired, and he presses his lips together. "Thank you."

‘I'm in love with you,' Adam had said. He hadn't deserved Ronan's reply. Ronan doesn't know what either of them deserve.

Ronan shrugs his shoulders, feeling awkward in his own skin, and turns towards the door. They've both said more than enough today.

"Don't go," Adam says. Ronan turns back, surprised.

"What?"

"You don't have to leave," Adam says. "You can sleep here. You've done it before."

"Are you going to tell me anything new?" Ronan asks.

"No."

Ronan gnashes his teeth. "Are you going to kiss me?" He's not sure if he even wants that right now.

Adam's gaze is steady. "No."

Ronan laughs, and it feels freeing. Something in the way Adam says it, a hint of reproach, is so familiar. And this is good, this is fine. Another night, curled up in St. Agnes with Adam. And he still doesn’t know what Adam, any Adam wants from him. But he knows that Adam, any Adam, wants this. Ronan’s company, curled up on the mattress beside him.

Adam just quirks an eyebrow at him, looking pleased and amused and a little smug. God, he loves this asshole.

"Ok." He drops straight down onto the mattress, and the floorboards beneath it creak in protest. "Move over."

  
  


* * *

The Glens are pretty, in their way. In the early morning light, mist curls up from the wet grass, and the entire thing looks like a painting of what a fantasy setting should be. It’s beautiful and eerie and not something that Adam can accept as ever being his.

Adam sits on the top stop of the porch, watching the sunlight hit the dew and make it sparkle. The trees of the little forest spring up about six yards out, and it only adds to the impression of magic. But then, he supposes that it is magic, really.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Gansey settles down on the top step next to Adam. He’s angled himself on Adam’s right side, his hearing side, even though it means that Adam is looking at the worst of the scarring. Adam has noticed that Gansey tends to draw attention away from it when he can.

“It’s nice.” It’s very Virginia. The old fashioned house, the expansive front lawn, the grass and the tree and the sky. It’s not too different from Henrietta. He already knows what the wet grass will feel like between his toes, knows it from his childhood running through fields not unlike this. A little more unkempt, a little more wild, but fundamentally the same.

Gansey makes a faint noise of agreement, and presses a cup of coffee cup into Adam’s hands.

Adam stares down at it, surprised. A tentative sip reveals that it is prepared exactly how he likes it, and that it was probably too hot to have tasted. He winces.

“Careful,” Gansey says. “It’s hot.”

“Ha,” Adam says, blowing on it.

“I keep telling Ronan that he should make a machine that can prepare coffee to the user’s exact taste.”

“Oh?”

Gansey makes a face. “He says that takes all the fun out of it.”

“He missed his calling as a barista.”

Gansey snorts into his coffee. “Yeah, right. God, can you even imagine?”

Adam spends a second to picture Ronan in a green apron, smiling politely at rude customers. He gets as far as someone asking Ronan to remake a drink for the third time before he imagines Ronan pouring the drink on the man’s head. “I’d rather not.”

Gansey bumps his shoulder against Adam’s companionably. “What’s on your mind?”

Adam passes the cup from hand to hand, letting it warm his chilled fingers. “Nothing.”

“Okay.” Gansey takes a sip of his own coffee and stares out over the Glens. Adam waits for Gansey to press him and Gansey doesn’t.

Adam takes a sip as well. It’s still too hot.

“I just don’t understand how this is my life,” he bursts out. Gansey doesn’t look at him at first, taking slow sips out of the mug in his hand.

“What about it is hard to believe?” he asks, staring out at the treeline. “The fact that you’re married? That you’re successful? That you’re wealthy?” He turns to meet Adam’s eyes, “That you’re happy?”

Adam falters. No, he wants to say. Yes. “I just—with Ronan.”

“Adam. Please.”

Adam stares at him, and Gansey stares back. “What is that supposed to mean?” He doesn't intend for it to be defensive, but it still comes out that way. He bites his lip, trying to keep more words tucked behind his teeth.

“Adam, come on. You marrying Ronan can not be what surprises you about all of this.”

Gansey’s face is unrelenting, unyielding. It’s his Glendower face, what Blue has taken to calling his bulldog face.

“I’ve never—”

“Never thought about it?" Gansey snorts. "Adam, you can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”

Adam has a lot of possible responses to that. Some of them are even good ones. What comes out is, “I could totally lie to you.”

Gansey laughs. “If you say so.”

Adam racks his brain for a lie he’s told Gansey and comes up blank. Oh, He’s told plenty of lies—I’m fine Gansey, I don’t need your help Gansey, that shirt looks great on you Gansey—but never one that Gansey believed. Every lie he can recall telling has been met with Gansey politely and obviously only pretending to believe him.

“Do you think I love him?” he asks, because he trusts Gansey to have an answer.

Gansey purses his lips, making the scar tissue over his cheek stretch taut. “No.”

It should feel like relief. It feels a lot like disappointment. “Oh.”

“That doesn’t mean you haven’t thought about it, Adam. Love takes time. I hate to break it to you, but we’re not living in a Disney movie.”

“The magic forest threw me off for a bit," Adam says, and he delights in the way it makes Gansey's mouth twitch into a smile.

“Really? It was the magic kisses that got to me.”

Adam shakes his head. “No, no. If this were Disney, you would be saved by true love’s kiss. Not,” he gestures, "you know."

“Oh, of course.” Gansey laughs. “I think I rather got shafted in this one.”

Adam makes a point of looking him over. “I dunno, you seem to being doing alright to me.” The word dunno catches in his ear, reminds him of how much an outsider he is here, even in his own future. Future Adam probably has perfected the neutral accent. I don’t know, he tells himself silently, a mental rebuke. Don’t. Know.

Gansey doesn’t seem to notice. “I can’t complain. And neither, by the way, can you. Future you. The you who owns this house and is married to Ronan.”

Adam flinches.

Gansey, being Gansey, notices. “Adam?”

“I don’t know,” he swallows. “I don’t know if—” he can’t make himself say it.

Gansey makes a thoughtful noise. “You know, I remember future you showing up in Henrietta.” Adam doesn’t say anything. Ronan has been so reluctant to talk about what his husband is doing in Adam’s timeline, and Adam hasn’t wanted to press. Hasn’t wanted to know. But now, now that Gansey is talking, he wants to know. Desperately wants to know. Gansey doesn’t seem to expect a reply.

“And of course, Ronan was so shocked. Married! Who could have guessed? Well, Noah, maybe. It never even phased him. But it surprised me. Maybe I was selfish back then. I was so obsessed, you see. Glendower, and then Blue. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been.”

Adam swallows. He had known, had been pretty sure, about Gansey and Blue. It was always the sort of thing he could ignore, if he wanted to. He doesn’t care, not really, not in that way. But hearing it said now, admitted for the first time from someone who is ten years removed from the situation, that hurts. He wishes that his Blue and his Gansey had felt able to tell him. He doesn't even know what it is that they're doing, but if Gansey is putting Blue in the same line as Glendower, then it's something. He swallows. What has he done, that has made them think that they have to keep it a secret?

Gansey glances over at him. "Hey. Whatever you're thinking now, stop it."

Adam shakes his head, and he's not sure what he means by it. No, I'm not thinking anything. No, go on.

"Me and Blue, it was complicated back then," Gansey says.

Adam snorts, because that's probably an understatement at best.

Gansey grins. "Yeah, exactly. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. That summer was so," he pauses. "Terrible and wonderful and magical. And it felt like if I told anyone about Blue, she would vanish. So, I didn't tell anyone."

And that? That is a feeling that Adam feels down to his _bones._ He just never would have thought it was something that Gansey would feel as well.

“And, of course, I was frustrated with you." Gansey continues, deliberately light "I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t let me _help_ you.”

Adam tenses all over. He doesn’t want this argument now, he’s not sure he can take it. Gansey puts a hand on his arm. For the first time, Adam notices that Gansey’s hand is scarred as well, the shiny, twisted scars of an old burn.

“It’s okay, I get it now. I don’t think I ever did then, but I do now. That’s not what this story is about. So, you came. Future you. Or, present you, I suppose. We’ve arrived at the future.” He laughs softly. “And you just kept flirting. You kept pushing at Ronan, and I remember thinking, Oh. Because, the way you looked at him then, it wasn’t new. It was just,” he thumbs over his lip, thinking, “more. It was just more.

“And Ronan, god, poor Ronan. He was so confused. I think he hated future you. But more than that, he was terrified of him.” Adam is helplessly, selfishly glad of that. He doesn’t want Ronan to like another Adam. He hates the idea that he could get back, and be found lacking next to a man he won’t be for another ten years. “And I thought, I shouldn’t have been this surprised. If I’d been the friend you both deserved, maybe I would have seen it sooner. Maybe I could have helped.”

“You don’t need to help, Gansey,” Adam says, and his voices comes out choked. “You’re an amazing friend. More of a friend than I’ve ever,” he swallows, “than I’ve ever deserved.” He hates saying it aloud, even to this Gansey, who is safe and distant. Somehow, he feels like his Gansey will hear, and understand, and Gansey will finally realize that he doesn’t need Adam Parrish hanging around to make a mess of things.

Gansey swings an arm around Adam’s shoulders and tugs him into a one armed hug, pressing him close. Adam breathes in, and gasps, and relaxes into it. Gansey has always been more than Adam deserved.

“That wasn’t the point of my story, Parrish,” Gansey says, and his voice has gone choked as well.

“What was the point?” Adam lets himself relax into the contact, leaning against Gansey’s shoulder. He takes a fortifying sip of coffee, and that helps.

“My point is, I know that being married to Ronan is not as shocking to you as Ronan seems to think. Any Ronan, by the way. So, if you want to talk about what’s bothering you,” he lets himself trail off, an open question. Adam could get up, could leave if he wanted, and Gansey wouldn’t push it.

But Adam is so, so tired.

“I don’t know how to be him,” he says. “I don’t know how to be Ronan’s husband.”

“How so?” Gansey rests his head on Adam’s, and Adam is so, so relieved that Gansey isn’t trying to argue the point.

“Do you ever feel like maybe you’re aren’t capable of love? Maybe I just don’t have it in me, to be the husband that Ronan needs, the one he deserves.”

“What?”

Adam presses his hands together around the coffee mug, feeling his fingers shake. “I don’t know if I can love Ronan, can love anyone like that. I don’t think I have the capacity. To just, just,” he falters, “to just let go like that. I can’t do that, Gansey, I can’t.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling sick. It’s the last thing he wants Gansey to know, the last thing he wants anyone to know. But he is so tired of keeping it secret.

“What the hell, Adam?” Gansey asks, pulling away enough to look Adam in the face. “That’s bullshit.”

Adam laughs, and it feels weak. “I don’t think you’re supposed to invalidate my emotions.”

“I am when they’re invalid!”

Adam shakes his head, because he doesn’t know how else to express this.

“Adam, you literally sacrificed yourself to a magical sentient forest to save us. That doesn’t sound like love to you?”

“That’s different,” Adam protests.

“Why? Because you don’t also want to have sex with us? I say again, bullshit. Love is love, even if it’s platonic. And I love the shit out of you, and I know for a fact that you love me. Yes, even in your timeline. I’m not fucking blind, Adam.”

“It’s not—”

“The same? Ok, fine. How about when you blackmailed one of your professors. Was that an entirely selfish act as well?”

“He killed Ronan’s father!” Adam snaps, like that explains it. It does. Greenmantle would have hurt Ronan, and so he had to be stopped. It was as simple as that.

“I’m not arguing your reasoning, or even your methods. My point is, the emotions are there.”

“No, that’s not. I’m not saying you’re not my friends but,” he gestures up, at the porch they’re sitting on, “this. I want to go to Harvard, Gansey. Or Yale, or Princeton. I want to make something of my life, and I would leave you all behind to do it. Even Ronan. That’s not—that’s not love.”

“I’m sueing hallmark, I swear to god. Adam, in what world does love mean sacrifice all your dreams and ambitions? Ronan knows you, if you even suggested giving that up for him, he’d kick your ass himself.”

Gansey doesn’t get it. Gansey doesn’t understand. Adam swallows.

“You don’t—god, Gansey, I don’t think I can explain. This Ronan, he called me selfish. And he’s right. I know that Ronan, my Ronan has a crush on me. And even when I didn’t like him back, god, I liked that he liked me. Even though I know it must be hurting him. I hate the thought that he might move on, that he could like someone else.” His hands curl around the mug, tight. “Ronan was right, it’s just ego. I want him to like me, because it makes me feel good about myself. That Ronan, of all people, could like me. I don’t ever want him to stop.”

Gansey tugs Adam back against his shoulder. “Ronan didn’t mean that.”

Adam laughs, “Trust me, he really did.”

“Ok, there are a number of things going on here, so let’s start at the top. One, no he didn’t. Ronan has always had trouble accepting that you love him,” Adam flinches, but Gansey doesn’t let him pull away, “which is just as much on him as on you, and I can’t address everything right now. He’s mostly gotten over that, but you, mini-you, represent a period of time where that feeling was at its worst—stop flinching, I will put you in a headlock—so he took out some of his insecurities on you. Which is bad, both because you didn’t deserve it and also because he is an adult and you are 18 and that’s a bit fucked up. He and I will have words.”

“It’s not his—”

“Number two,” Gansey says, barrelling right over him. “I hope you noticed you talking about Ronan’s unrequited love in the past tense, because I certainly did. And number three, Adam. Adam, even if all of that were true, it’s ok to be flattered that someone likes you and still not want them. I truly believe that if Ronan had fallen in love with someone else, you would have been happy for him. Because you’re a good person, and you want good things for your friends.”

“How do you know that?” Adam asked.

He can hear the grin in Gansey’s voice even without looking at him. “Because I’m a little bit magic myself, Parrish.”

* * *

Ronan watches the others through sleepy, half-lidded eyes. Blue is doing more magical stuff, presumably. From the outside, it looks like she is mediating, her palms turned upwards on her knees, legs crossed. He never really thought of Blue as a meditation kind of person. Noah he can feel beside him, stretched out in the same sunbeam that Ronan has claimed, just close enough the Ronan’s left side is a bit cooler than his right. For a moment, he can’t see Gansey or Adam, and it nearly makes him sit bolt upright. Then Cabeswater carries their voices to him on the wind.

“It’s not about the money,” Adam is saying, voice soft and apologetic.

“I know it’s not about—” the rest of Gansey’s reply is lost as Cabeswater takes the words again. Fickle bitch. 

Ah. Another Gansey-Parrish heart to heart. This Adam seems a lot more forthcoming about his emotions than their usual Adam. Rona isn’t sure whether or not he’ll miss it. Probably not. All the touchy-feely stuff tends to make him uncomfortable.

He hears Adam say something about control, something about Gansey being a good friend. More of the same sort of thing that they always fought over, in the strange way they had where Adam yelled a lot and Gansey tried to pretend like it didn’t bother him.

Cabeswater isn’t willing to let him eavesdrop on the rest, and even his powers as Greywaren can’t compel it to twist the wind more in his direction, to carry more of their words to his ears. He hopes that whatever this Adam is saying helps. He hates the way Gansey gets after an argument with Adam, lips pressed tight with frustration and holding the hurt closer than he wants to admit.

The trees are murmuring, but they aren’t saying anything distinct. Just soft babble, as easy and relaxing as a noise machine. It’s a lot like the comforting background noises that Ronan had always slept to back at Monmouth, and it’s warm in the sunlight.

He closes his eyes again, and lets himself drift.

He opens his eyes to a clearing that looks almost exactly the same. A heavy mist hangs around him hiding everything from sight. The very air is dense, sucking in the sound. He feels muffled and claustrophobic.

When he looks around, he can't see any of the others. With the strange awareness that he sometimes gets in Cabeswater, he realizes that he is alone here.

Ronan pushes himself up onto his hands, leaning back on them. "Hello?"

The clearing and the mist suck the words into them, and they seem to travel no further than his arms could reach.

The leaves rustle, and the trees whisper something, but it sounds eerie and unfamiliar. He thinks he can catch his own name, but nothing else. The mist is deadening all sounds, and he doesn't know if Cabeswater is trying to warn him or to threaten him.

He stands, unnerved by the way that the ground underfoot makes no sound. "Hello?" He calls again, and this time he can feel the heavy presence of eyes on the back of his neck.

He spins around, wishing desperately for a weapon, and then closes his hand on the hilt of a knife.

A dream, he realizes.

This isn't the safe space he has carved out in his dreams, with the orphan girl and the clearing that welcome him as protector. This is different, wrong. The orphan girl is nowhere to be seen, and he hopes abruptly that she is safe.

"Hello?" A voice responds, and Ronan's heart drops, because he knows that voice. He steps through the mist, footsteps not making a sound on the soft grass.

He can barely make out the too-familiar shape of Adam, leaning back against the rough bark of a tree. His Adam.

"Ronan?" Adam sounds surprised, more surprised than Ronan thinks he has the right to, since this is Ronan's dream.

Ronan strides forward, more confidant now. Adam stares up at him, dark eyes startled. He is entirely the Adam from Ronan's timeline, and Ronan hadn't thought he would miss him this much. It's only been two days, and he's been away from Adam for longer than that before.

But then, no, it's not the separation that bothers him. It's having someone who is almost-his-Adam-but-not-quite around, reminding Ronan again and again of what he can’t have.

"'Sup, Parrish?" Ronan asks, reaching down a hand. Adam rolls his eyes, but lets Ronan pull him up.

Dream Adam is easier to handle than Future Adam, if only because Ronan has months of experience in dealing with the Adam who sometimes appears in his dreams.

Adam looks around, eyes the trees and the heavy mist with suspicion. "It's awfully creepy here."

Ronan looks around again. The mist is still heavy, hiding everything outside the span of his arms, but it bothers him less with Adam, even a fictionalized version of Adam at his side. He shrugs.

"I didn't do it."

Adam shakes his head. "Well, of course not. This is my—well." He takes a few steps forward, probably to explore this almost-version of the Cabeswater clearing.

Out of reflex, Ronan shoots his hand out and grabs Adam's arm. He doesn't grip hard, but Adam stops as though he had.

"Ronan?"

"Don't," Ronan says. "It feels off."

Adam looks around as well. "I suppose." He bites his lip, and it's even more distracting on him than on his future self. He looks down at Ronan's hand on his arm. "Ronan?"

Ronan thinks about letting him go, and discards the notion. Adam will shake him off if he wants Ronan to let go. And who knows. This might be one of the dreams where Adam doesn't shake him off at all. It might be one of the ones where Adam leans into him, eyes dark, lips parted.

"Yeah?" Ronan says, deliberately arch. Adam's brow creases in irritation and confusion, and Ronan feels a tingle at his fingertips. He can't usually capture the nuances of Adam's expressions so well.

"Aren't you going to let me go?"

Ronan pretends to think about it. "No."

The sting of rejection from the other Adam is still sharp in his mind, and Ronan can't help but indulge. He slides his hand down Adam's arm, tracing over the muscles under the thin material of Adam's shirt, the delicate bones of his wrist, the strong lines of his fingers, before he grips Adam's hand in his own.

When he brings his gaze back up to Adam's face, Adam is staring at him, eyes wide and face flushed.

Ronan grins at him, and it feels sharp and dangerous on his face. This moment itself feels more risky than any of his street races, and he loves it.

"I missed you," he says, and it's like throwing the car into third gear in exceleration, like taking a turn too fast or feeling that car go up on two wheels, terrifying and exhilarating and wonderful.

Adam swallows, and Ronan watches in amused pleasure as the flush travels down his neck. "I miss you too," Adam says, and it comes out as a whisper.

Ronan feels the edge of his grin softening, and he squeezes Adam's hand. This is the best kind of dream.

Adam can seem to keep his eyes on Ronan's face, and his gaze falls on the knife in Ronan's other hand.

"That's not for me, is it?" he asks, and his tone is amused.

"Something is wrong," Ronan replies. "This place is," he gestures with the knife. "Wrong."

Adam makes a vague noise of agreement. "I know." He closes his eyes, and his hand tightens on Ronan's. Ronan watches him, content to wait and study the familiar lines of his face. Adam frowns, concentration knitting his brow, and when his eyes snap open again, Ronan almost steps back at the intensity in them.

Adam doesn't say anything, just watches him with wild, unblinking eyes. Ronan stares back, feeling confused and turned on and a bit wild himself. He likes the way that Adam is looking at him. He likes it a lot.

Then light suddenly blazes up in the clearing, a road flare going off. Then Adam is holding his free hand between them, his face triumphant and self-satisfied.

"She was right," he says, and for all the pride in his face, his voice is soft and affectionate. "It's easier with you."

The light is pure and true and illuminates the clearing more than should be possible without blinding him. It brightens Adam's whole face and throws back the shadows until the whole world feels safe.

Ronan kisses him, because he can't imagine doing anything else. He loves this Adam most, pleased and smug and uncontrollable and _free_. The Adam who is a magician and Ronan's partner in magic, and Ronan is so glad that this is the Adam he dreamed up tonight. (He couldn't handle the cold dismissive Adam tonight, he couldn't.)

Adam makes a startled noise against his mouth, which is an unfamiliar touch of reality, but then he sinks into it. His mouth is warm and wet, and he tastes like the cool air of Cabeswater at its purest.

Ronan drops the knife, and it makes no sound if it hits the ground at all. It might have just disappeared the second it left Ronan's hand, and Ronan doesn't care enough to check. He fits his hands around Adam's hips, pulling him closer, stepping in at the same time so that they're pressed together from shoulder to hip.

Adam moans, and Ronan shivers as the sound runs through him. He can feel Adam's hands on his shoulders, tugging him impossibly closer. He can still see the sunflare bursts of Adam's light against his eyelids, but Adam's hands are cool against him. The fabric of Ronan's shirt pulls tight as Adam's hands clench into fists.

He can feel Adam getting hard against his hip and he steps into it, maneuvering his leg between Adam's until Ronan can use the leverage to angle Adam, back, back until Adam hits up again the tree. Adam moans when his back slams up against the bark, arching up into Ronan.

Ronan grins and bites into Adam's mouth, wanting to hear that sound forever, again and again until he wants to die from it. Adam's hand goes to clench tight around the back of Ronan's neck, and it makes something hot and primal flare up in Ronan. He has to lean into Adam to stop his knees from buckling, and he makes a sound that feels torn from his throat.

He can feel the smug edges of Adam's smile under his mouth, and he has to lean back to see it, because Adam is so rarely smug and happy.

"Holy fuck."

Adam's eyes open in response to Ronan's words, then go wide.

"Well." He swallows. "This is embarrassing."

The clearing is full of light and life. The ground underneath has burst into full bloom, flowers springing up where Ronan had been sure there was just grass, light bubbles floating in the air around them.

Ronan looks around them, mouth falling open. "Did, was this you?"

Adam's mouth twists. "Ronan can never find out about this," he says nonsensically, then he tightens his grip on the back of Ronan's neck, _oh god,_ and pulls Ronan back into him.

Ronan goes willingly, eagerly. Adam's tee shirt is soft under hands, and Adam's skin is even softer when he slides his hand under the fabric.

Adam jerks against him like a livewire, the hard line of his cock pressed to Ronan's hip and Ronan's hips stutter in response. It's a delicious circle, until they are pressing and rutting against one another desperately. Adam is panting into his mouth now, soft exhales and breathy exclamations and _holy fuck_ this is the best dream ever.

"Ronan," Adam gasps, "Ronan, please." And God, that sound. Ronan has never heard anything better. He wants to drop to his knees, wants to make Adam _beg._

He pulls away just to gasp for air, reveling in the way that Adam chases after his mouth. Ronan ducks his head to press a kiss to Adam's jaw, and he's so caught up in the way he can feel the vibrations of Adam's moans through his skin that he almost doesn't notice the way the temperature suddenly drops.

He pauses, his lips pressed unmoving to the sharp edge of Adam's jaw.

"Ronan," Adam hisses, and it's such a radical shift from his pleased and breathy moans that Ronan feels cold. His hands shift to Ronan's shoulder and push. Ronan lets him go and for a moment he thinks _no, no, not again_ because even his dream creations, even here. But then Adam is looking past him, and his face is alert but not cold and not regretful. "Something is wrong."

Ronan can feel it too. The mist is back, heavier than before. It can't block out the light that Adam created, but it tries, surrounding it in a dark haze. The flowers wilt on the ground and Ronan mourns their loss.

"There is someone here," he says, and steps away. He puts his back to Adam, meaning to protect him. A knife comes to his hand, and its hilt feels familiar in his hand.

Adam steps around to his side, and his hand is shimmering with light. With his free hand, he takes Ronan's, and Ronan feels lighter for it. The mist seems a little less oppressive.

"Is this what it's like for you?" Adam asks, his eyes watching the tree lines. Ronan can feel the heavy weight of eyes on them both, making his skin prickle. "This feels so real."

"The danger is always real," Ronan replies. Inception is a lie. You can always die in dream.

"I'm glad you're here," Adam says, and his fingers tighten around Ronan's. "Even if you are a dream."

Ronan shoots him a startled look. "What?"

Adam doesn't seem to hear him. "It's coming."

A figure steps out of the trees. It's impossible to put words to. It's a shadow given life, a black hole that sucks in light and sounds and tugs Ronan in like he has a new center of gravity. He digs his feet into the ground and grits his teeth.

The form is vaguely feminine, he thinks. When he looks at it for too long, his mind recoils, unable to process it. The sense of womanness is the same sort of dream knowledge that tells him that tells him that an unfamiliar form is someone known to him, or when he can reach out and make something real.

"The Greywaren," the figure says, and the voice is a terrible opposite of Cabeswater. It's an earthquake, the sound of stones sliding over one another, the hiss of snake scales over bare rock. "And the magician."

"What the fuck do you want?" Ronan demands, and it comes out with more bravado than he feels. He adjusts his hand on his knife, making sure that is secure in his hand. He has no experience with knife fights—Niall Lynch had taught his sons to rely on no weapon. The figure tilts its head, somehow conveying amusement.

"You've shielded Cabeswater against me."

This is the Third Sleeper, and the knowledge doesn't feel like a realization. He's known that ever since the flowers began to wilt.

"Yes. We did." He wants Gansey here, strong and commanding at his side. He wants Blue and her calm presence, Adam and his iron core, Noah and his kindness. He shouldn't be doing this alone, with a creature of dreams and mist.

Then Adam steps forward and his chin is tilted in defiance. "You have no power here. This place is under our protection."

Adam's words reverberate with strength, with an iron certainty that drives confidence and realization straight through him. Adam had thought he was a dream, and no dream would think that. Somehow, Adam is real.

Ronan feels Adam's hand in his own and draws strength from it.

"That magic is beyond you, little Magician." The Sleeper sounds cold and amused and terrible.

Ronan's lips curl up in a snarl. "Apparently not, bitch."

Adam's hand tightens on him, almost painfully. It's probably a reproach, but Ronan is comforted all the same. He squeezes back.

The figure takes another step forward, but Ronan can see that it costs her. "You are only biding time, magicians."

Ronan takes a step forward himself. He will take this fight to her if he has to, run her through if that’s what it takes to protect his friends.

The wind abruptly howls around him and even through the mist he hears Cabeswater, a deafening NO that echoes through his bones. Adam adjusts his grip on Ronan and _tugs,_ sudden and sharp. Ronan stops.

After a long moment, his hands clenched painfully, he reaches out with his mind like Adam had taught him. He can feel the wards that future Adam had created, barely a foot in front of him. He had almost crossed them.

The Sleeper snarls. "You can shield yourself against me, young protector. But you have never been able to shield against yourself."

She steps back, disappearing into the trees again. Ronan feels the tug of consciousness at the back of his mind.

"Ronan?" Adam asks, and his tone is heavy with concern. Then he hears a sound that makes hairs rise on the back of his neck. A buzzing, terrible and penetrating the deadening effect of the mist.

He has only a second to turn to Adam. "This isn't just a dream," he says, and then he pulls Adam close to him, shielding Adam in the circle of his arms as best he can.

When he blinks, he sees a swarm of wasps, hundreds, thousands, pressing down on him. He barely has time to brace himself, to close his mouth so they can't fly down his throat like they sometimes do.

Then they're all around him, and he can feeling them crawling on his skin, in his hair, squirming under his clothes until he wants to scream. He clenches his jaw because he's been here before and he knows what happens if he opens his mouth.

Adam is tense in his arms, a livewire of energy. To Ronan's extreme relief, he doesn't try to free himself, just ducks his head under Ronan's chin, trusting in Ronan to protect him. Ronan feels the magnitude of the gift like a mantle on his shoulder, heavy and warm and so welcome.

Ronan tries to will the wasps into something else, something harmless, ants or ladybugs or fireflies. He can feel consciousness tugging at him, and he knows that if he wakes up now that he will take them with him, and Gansey is in the clearing he had fallen asleep in.

"I can't control it," he thinks, desperately, and he feels something in him reach out.

Everything is wrong. It feels like the mist is inside his mind, pressing against the inside of his skull and it won't let him turn the wasps into anything safe.

Then something else is reaching out to him, and something that is somehow undeniably _Adam_ is in his mind. "Let me help," Adam says, and neither of them have opened their mouth.

Ronan presses harder, feels Adam pressing with him, willing them to be anything else. Ronan is waking up, he can feel his connection to Adam, to the dream, weakening around him. He can almost hear the gentle murmur of real conversation.

In a last, desperate effort, he pushes through. The wasps all clump together, crawling out of his shirt, the legs of his pants, the space behind his ears. They group together and they vibrate with the effort of all their tiny bodies moving together.

The air around them shimmers like a mirage, and then a nightmare creature is in front of him. It is wings and claws and red, red eyes. But it's not a wasp.

He lets Adam go, but he can still feel him in his mind. Ronan feels for his knife, and he isn't fast enough.

Ronan feels the creature’s claws bite deep into his stomach as he comes suddenly, lurching awake. He can hear Adam's scream echo in his ears.

The dream creature comes with him. Adam does not.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

There is no moment between asleep and awake, and Adam is already screaming before he realizes that he is no longer in the clearing, that Ronan is no longer in front of him.

Ronan’s name hovers on his lips, and Adam reaches out desperately for someone who is out of reach—out of time. He can feel himself starting to crack, can feel the utter loss of control making him shake. 

He can still feel the wasps against his skin, hear the horrible buzzing in his ear. He can still see Ronan’s skin splitting under the razor claws of the dream monster. He feels down to his bones the surety that it may have been a dream, but that it was utterly real. It was Ronan, his Ronan, in the dream with him, not a mind construct. 

He can too easily imagine what it will be like for Ronan to wake up, he’s already seen it, lived it. Except that this time there is no body decoy to take Ronan’s injuries, to keep Ronan himself safe and whole. Ronan will be waking up, choking on his own blood, with no one there to help him. 

Adam shouts Ronan’s name, half aware and fully desperate. 

“Adam!”

There are hands on his shoulders, shaking him, and he resists, not sure what is happening, but knowing that he has to fight something- someone. He has to get back, has to help. Ronan needs him. 

He can feel hands on him, grabbing, clutching, catching at skin under the thin fabric of his t-shirt. For a brief, terrible moment, he thinks that the Third Sleeper has followed him out, chasing him out of his dream like the dream creature had followed Ronan. His palms are prickling, and when he shoves the touch away, someone cries out.

“Adam!” And a sharp crack across his face jolts him out of it. Pain flares, and it hardly registers. 

“I have to get back,” he says, before he is even sure where he is. “He needs me.”

“Adam, you have to calm down.” There is something about that voice—strong, commanding—that cracks through his desperation, that makes it even through the images that fill Adam’s head—Ronan, bleeding, dying on the floor of the church. “Adam.” Adam blinks once, twice. He would follow that voice into death itself. Gansey swings into focus, looking intent and concerned. “Adam?” 

“I think he’s back,” Blue says. He’s pretty sure that she was the one who slapped him. She and Gansey are both kneeling beside him. Instinctively, Adam looks for Ronan, needing to reaffirm that Ronan is here, safe. Alive. 

It takes a moment to register where he is, when he still expects to see Cabeswater around him. He’s in the Glens, in the main clearing, and it takes a moment for the memories to settle in. It had been a lazy day, even with Blue trying to press magic lessons into him, and he had drifted off. 

It takes a moment for Adam to find Ronan, his heart pounding, fear and desperation rising heavy in his throat. When he finally sees him, Adam flinches. Ronan is sitting back on his heels, watching Adam with the same worried look as the others. Except that Ronan's arm is pulled close to his chest, and Adam can see the bright red bloom of fresh blood. 

Horrified, Adam looks down at his own hands. There are sharply thorned vines wrapped around his forearms, creeping between his fingers, shooting out spikes like daggers. It's beautiful and deadly, and there is blood on the tips of the thorns that spring out from Adam's palms. 

“Ronan,” he says, softly. He doesn't know what else to say, and no other words will come to him. 

“It’s fine.” Ronan says. He sounds like he means it, which is so much worse. Adam wants him to scream, to yell, to curse. Adam wants Ronan to lash out with the full, terrible force of his temper, because Adam has hurt him and Adam deserves it. 

Instead, Ronan just holds out his arms in evidence of his words. Adam pulls back, hardly able to look at the blood on Ronan's pale skin. His fault. 

It doesn’t look fine. It looks painful. Blood is still trickling from two deep gouges, and there are smaller scrapes crisscrossing Ronan’s arms. “Hey.” Ronan moves closer, and Blue and Gansey shift to give him room. “Hey, it’s okay. You were dreaming. It’s not your fault.” His voice is careful, tender. It's the voice for a small, delicate thing, and Adam hates it. Hates that he needs it now even more. 

At the first touch of Ronan’s hands on his face, Adam goes utterly still. Ronan is watching him as if he’s afraid Adam will spook like a nervous horse. “I heal fast. I’m glad that you’re finally learning how to defend yourself.”

Feeling shaky and vulnerable, Adam allows himself the telling motion of leaning into Ronan’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. Ronan's palm is broad, and warm against his face. 

“I know.” Ronan brushes a loose curl behind Adam’s ear, then pulls back. Adam has to fight against the urge to pull him back, pull him tight against Adam. He doesn't want anything from it, just the solid feel of Ronan against him, the warmth of his body, the steady thrum of his heartbeat. Proof that he is okay, that he hadn't bled out in some nameless under the claws of a dream monster Adam had been unable to fight. 

Ronan doesn’t go far though and Adam is able to keep his hands to himself, clenched tight to his sides. Ronan just settles down next to him, close enough that their shoulders are pressed tight together. Ronan’s skin is exposed in his tank top, and Adam can almost feel it, warm through the thin fabric of Adam’s own shirt. 

“What did you dream about?” Gansey asks, careful. Adam can see the glare Ronan gives Gansey out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't understand it. 

The dream suddenly reinserts himself back into the forefront of his mind. “I have to get back.” He tries to get to his feet and almost falls. He feels wobbly and off balance and desperate. “I have to get back now.”

Gansey catches him when he almost falls, propping him up. “Woah, there. You’re not going anywhere.”

Adam pushes him away, and this time he manages to make it upright on his own. “They need me,” he says. “Ronan just—he just,” his throat closes tight around the horror of it. “The dream.”

Gansey grabs Adam’s face in his hands, turning Adam to meet his eyes. “It will be okay, Adam. He is going to be okay. You need to breathe.”

Adam draws in a sharp breath, and then, at Gansey’s direction, takes another. 

“Please,” he says, once he feels more in control. “Please, I have to get back.”

It feels like a moment suspended in time. These three strangers who are almost his friends stare at him, and he stares back, and the silence stretches between them. 

"What was the dream?" Blue asks, repeating Gansey's question.

Adam feels his face flame hot at the thought of the first half, but this isn't the time or the place for his embarrassment. "Cabeswater," he says. "Ronan and I were both there. My Ronan." He tilts his chin up, defiant and firm. "He was real. It was really him."

"I believe you," Gansey says comfortingly. "What happened?"

"He," Adam swallows. "The Third Sleeper was there. It was—it was terrible." He has to gasp around the memory, the terrible presence and how it had felt like dying things and the smell of rotten fruit in the summer. "Ronan was—it attacked him."

"A dream creature," Gansey offers, and Adam's eyes shoot up.

"Yes."

"He brought it with him," Gansey finishes. "He was hurt."

"I have to get back," Adam says.

The others exchange a look, and Adam feels anger prickle underneath his skin. 

"If you were dreaming of Cabeswater," Blue says slowly. "Living dreams," she trails off, deep in thought. Gansey nudges her, and she turns to him. Her face is alive. "It's reaching out."

"What is?" Adam asks. He just wants to go home, needs to go home. He can see Ronan alive in front of him, but he needs to see his own Ronan, whole and healthy.

“There’s something we need to show you,” Blue says, turning back to him with wild eyes, and Gansey turns to her, his mouth gaping open.

“Blue,” he says, and it shouldn’t shock Adam that Gansey is using her proper name, but it does. 

“No,” she says. “He needs to see.” She turns to Ronan. “What do you think, Greywaren?” There is something formal in her tone, something almost ritualistic. It’s not the playful teasing way that she sometimes uses in his own time. This is a title, and it has more meaning than Adam can understand.

Ronan stands with his eyes closed, meditative. He looks like a tightly wound coil of energy, and Adam can still see the ribbons of blood on his forearms and he hates himself for it. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it feels right.”

He catches Adam’s expression and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know. But sometimes you can’t help all the,” he holds out a hand and wobbles it back and forth, “magic stuff. Sometimes it really is just a feeling."

Adam feels frustration well up in him. “I just want to go home,” he says, and it comes out sounding plaintive. He feels like a child. “Ronan is hurt, and I don’t even know if he is with the others, or if he’ll be okay.” He swallows. “I know there isn’t much I can do to help but I need,” he clenches his fist. “I need to get back.”

Ronan’s eyes sharpen on his face. “You're worried.”

Adam feels fury abruptly well over. "Of course I am. He's—" everything. "I can't just let him die." And he tilts his chin up, defiant.

Ronan turns to the others. “Adam is right. It’s now. We go now.” His expression is thoughtful, and he keeps shooting Adam speculative looks. 

Whatever he is thinking, he keeps it to himself, and Adam is too tired to ask. 

Gansey nods, and seems to draw the mantle of leadership around himself. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Adam asks, already following him. It is easy to follow Gansey. 

Gansey turns to him, never once stopping his stride, or looking to avoid the trees. His face is open and kingly and Adam would follow him to the ends of the world. “We’re going back to Cabeswater.” 

* * *

Ronan hears Blue scream before he is even fully awake, and for a moment the sound blends together with the way Adam had cried out in the dream. 

The pain hits him next, and for a moment he can’t even think through it. It’s white hot agony in his stomach, and when he clutches his hands to the worst of the pain, his palms come away wet. 

He forces his eyes open because the dream monster isn’t on him any more, where is it? He’s sure that it came with him, he knows the feeling of having just brought something to life like he knows his own name. And if it isn’t on him, if it isn’t attacking him, then it is attacking someone else. That seems to be the nature of his dreams, of his subconscious mind—attack, attack, attack. 

When he manages to get his eyes open, he almost closes them again because the light in the clearing is so bright and somehow it just makes everything hurt so much worse. His breaths are echoing in his ears, coming short and fast. 

Someone screams again, and he’s not sure which of them it is this time. He really wants to scream himself. Sitting up is agony, but he manages. The monster, his monster, is here in what is supposed to be a safe space, and it’s his fault. His responsibility. He can’t breathe, can barely think, it hurts so bad.

“It’ll be okay.” Icy cold floods his stomach and it is blessedly numbing. “You’re going to be okay.” Noah doesn’t sound sure, and his voice wavers, but the words help. His hands, pressed icy cold to Ronan’s stomach, help more. The deep gouges in his stomach are still bleeding, but it’s sluggish. “I can’t give you my shirt,” Noah says, and he sounds desperate. “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything, I’m sorry.” 

Ronan can see that Noah is starting to flicker, and he thinks that for once Noah is the one giving the energy—and Noah doesn’t have much to give. He closes his hand around Noah’s wrist, and feels the cold travel up to his elbow. “Stop.”

Noah turns his face up to Ronan, and his eyes are dark and wild. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ve done enough,” Ronan says. He lets Noah go, lets Noah step back. His whole stomach is numb, and he wants to cry from the release of pain. 

He stands, with Noah’s help, and his knees almost give out twice, but he doesn’t have a chance. His friends are under attack, and Ronan has to help them.

The ground wavers under him, swaying like the deck of a ship. It’s a miracle that Noah is solid enough to bear any of Ronan’s weight, but Ronan doesn’t fall. When his vision clears, the ground of Cabeswater swings into sharp focus. The knife from his dreams sits there, looking incongruous against the bright grass. In the light of day, it looks even more wickedly sharp here then it had in the dream. Had Ronan made it like that? It’s nothing like the switchblade he had occasionally brought along when the met Kavinsky. It looks like an ornamental dagger, the kind that his father sometimes brought back from long trips, but Ronan is sure that he has never seen one like this before.

He makes a move to pick it up and stops himself before he can pitch forward, pain doubling in his stomach, running through every limb. 

Noah stoops quickly and grabs it, pressing the hilt into Ronan’s hands. It’s stupid, the blade itself can’t be more than a few inches, but Ronan feels stronger for having it. He clenches his hand around it, feels it dig into his palms, and is glad to have something so solid.

Adam is standing motionless, his back to Ronan, with Gansey and Blue on either side. They are arranged like sentinels, shielding Ronan from further attack, and Ronan feels the thought run through him, hot with guilt and gratitude. It is one thing to know that your friends might be willing to die for you. It is another to see them standing strong between you and death. 

The dream creature shrieks in rage, because rage is all this creature knows, and dives down to attack, razor claws extended. Ronan draws in a sharp gasp, wanting to shout, to warn them. He doesn’t get a chance. The creature hits a barrier that Ronan can’t see, bouncing back with another scream.

Adam wavers like taking a hit and Gansey has to steady him. 

“He can’t keep it up for long.” Noah says, putting a steadying hand on Ronan’s elbow. 

Ronan staggers up to the line of defenders, taking his place at Gansey’s right hand. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be stupid,” Gansey snaps. “This isn’t your fault.”

Ronan wants to press the point, wants to argue, but they don’t have the time. It may be the four of them against one monster, but the only weapon between them is Ronan’s dream blade, and it’s barely more than a dinner knife. 

“Blue,” Adam says, and there is steely command in his voice. “You know all that shit I said about control and making sure to keep your orbs as light based, not heat based?”

“Yeah?”

“Forget all of that.”

Blue grins. “Gladly.” 

“Ronan,” Adam says. “How are you doing?”

Good, Ronan wants to say, and he manages “Fine,” just before his legs buckle. 

Adam swears, and is at his side in an instant, crouching over him. 

The monster dives again, relentless in it’s need to hurt, to kill. This time whatever barrier is holding it back seems to give, less like a wall and more like fabric. Ronan can see the places where the monster is held back, and other points where it almost makes it through. Adam goes dead white when it hits, swaying even on his knees. 

“Fuck off!” Blue yells at the monster, and she hurls something that looks like pure fire at it. 

Whatever barrier holds the monster back doesn’t work on Blue. The monster screams when its wing catches fire, and the acrid smell of burnt feathers fills the clearing. It flaps furiously, trying to put it out, and falls back. 

Adam’s hands flit over Ronan’s stomach, barely making contact. “This is bad,” he says. “Fuck, Ronan.”

His face is drawn tight with concern, and Ronan has never seen him like this, so desperate. He raises his hand to Adam’s cheek, meaning to smooth the worry lines from around his eyes. His fingers leave bloody marks on Adam’s face. 

Ronan had once had a dream where he lay back on an old stone table, bleeding from some unknowable wound. Gansey had been at his side, inexplicably bearded and understandably sad. Blue had been at Gansey’s side with red eyes. She had been wearing a dress like she had been stopped on the way to a Renaissance faire. Adam had held Ronan’s hand, jaw clenched in that way it got when he refused to acknowledge having human emotions, his eyes bright and his hair a wreck. Ronan had woken up and felt pleased at the thought that his friends would mourn him.

This is nothing like that. Gansey is standing between Ronan and the monster with nothing but his bare hands and his salmon polo shirt, while Blue tries to fight with magic she doesn’t know how to use. Ronan isn’t entirely sure that he is going to survive this, and Adam looks like he is about to come out of his skin, like he would burn the world down to make Ronan better. It’s terrifying, and Ronan would give anything to make sure that Adam never has to look that way again.

“Adam!” Blue cries, and Ronan looks away from the desperation on Adam’s face to see her dodge as the monster comes at her. Its wing is still smoldering, but mostly extinguished, and the barrier is gone. Blue only barely manages to avoid its claws. 

Adam visibly pulls himself together. “You’re going to be okay,” he promises, and he bends over to give Ronan a quick kiss on the lips. Ronan is a little pissed that he’s not in any mood to enjoy it. Then Adam stands, and puts his hands on Blue’s shoulders. “You can do this, I promise. It’s just like shielding yourself at Fox Way—but bigger.”

The creature banks to make another attack—and Ronan isn’t sure if it is going to go for Blue or for Ronan himself. Gansey swears and grabs for a rock on the ground. Ronan blinks. Were there rocks there before? 

“Hey, ugly!” Gansey shouts, and Ronan wants to tease him for the cliche, but his throat is tight with worry. Gansey throws the rock, lobbing it overhand. He has the muscles from crew, but there is a reason that Gansey never played baseball. The rock falls short of the creature itself, but the threat of it sends the monster back a few feet. 

“I just need you to hold it back,” Adam says. “Just for a little bit.”

“What will you be doing?” Blue asks Adam as his hands slip from her shoulders. Ronan has never heard Blue scared before, and he would love to never hear it again. The monster is preparing itself for another attack, watching them all with blood red eyes.

“Gansey needs a weapon,” Adam says, and his voice is steely. “And I think I can get it for him. Just keep it away from Ronan.”

Ronan wants to protest that, but his tongue is too heavy to form words. He feels cold all over. He doesn’t have much protest left in him. 

Blue nods, and her expression is fierce. “I won’t let it get him.” 

“I know.” 

Blue turns back to the creature, and twin fireballs appear in her hands. “Come and get me,” she says, positioning herself between the monster and Ronan. Ronan thinks that if he weren’t gone on Adam, and if Blue were a gender that appealed to him, he might fall in love with her in this moment. Her face is fierce, her eyes alight. Her dark hair shines in the light of the fire. She looks like a hero out of legend. 

Gansey’s face is dazed when he looks at her, awestruck and a little scared. 

Adam grabs Gansey’s arm and drags him to the pond, ignoring Gansey’s protests. “Concentrate on Glendower,” he says curtly, and shoves Gansey’s entire arm into the water. Ronan hadn’t thought that it was that deep. 

“What—” Gansey gasps, then, “Oh.” 

And Adam lets him go. 

To Ronan’s shock, Gansey comes out with a sword clutched in his hand. 

“What the hell, Adam,” Gansey says, faintly, staring at his hand like he’s never seen anything like it. The sword is sharp enough that its edges seem to disappear, and the metal gleams so bright in the sun that Ronan has to look away. Even so, he can see the blue wire hilt, the raven head at the pommel. He can’t see it, but he knows that the crossguard would look like spread wings. Ronan looks at the dagger still held tight in his palm. It’s a perfect match. 

“It’s no Excalibur,” Adam says. “But it belonged to Glendower. And now it’s yours.”

“Adam, I can’t—” Gansey begins, and is cut off by Blue’s scream.

Ronan drags his eyes back to her. She is hurling fireballs, but they’ve stopped making an impact on the dream creature, because of course Ronan would dream up a fireproof nightmare monster. 

Blue is panting, and there is a bloody gouge in her shoulder. “Get fucked,” she says defiantly, and throws her next fireball at the ground in front of her instead of at the monster. The fire roars into life, and travels in a straight line, creating a barrier between her and the monster.

Ronan looks over just in time to see Adam flinch back with his entire body, watching the fire with something that looks a lot like horror. For a moment, he looks like a stranger, terrified and terrible. 

Then he shakes himself and gives Gansey a push. “Help her.” 

Gansey scrambles to his feet, and Ronan notes with absent attention that his arm isn’t even wet. There is no way that Gansey has held a sword before in his life, but he grasps it steady in both hands and faces off next to Blue like was born to it. 

Adam drops to his knees next to Ronan. “You shouldn’t just give swords to children and let them play with fire,” Ronan says.

“Asshole,” Adam says, tone heavy with affection. Ronan preens under his warm gaze, and winces when his stomach pulls. “Stop moving.”

Adam reaches a hand to the ground, and when he pulls it up he has a fresh sprig of something Ronan can’t identify in his hand. Slowly, carefully, he lifts the bottom of Ronan’s shirt. Ronan groans as the blood, gone tacky in places, pulls at his skin. Adam makes low shushing sounds in his throat and presses his hand into Ronan’s side. Ronan cries out, barely muffling a scream behind his teeth. He can’t see the fight anymore, can’t see anything as his vision greys out in pain. 

“Noah?” Adam says, and there is no discernible shift, nothing that Ronan can see, but he can suddenly tell that Noah is beside him. “Can you keep it numb?”

Noah must agree, because cold fingers press against Ronan’s side. 

“Chew this,” Adam says, and he presses leaves into Ronan’s mouth—Ronan hadn’t even seen him grab them. How much of this is Adam’s magic, and how much is Cabeswater obliging? Is there a difference, with Adam? Ronan opens on instinct, and a disgusting taste fills his mouth. He almost spits it out, but Adam’s hand clamps tight on his jaw. “Don’t you dare.”

With effort, Ronan chews and swallows. He can hear Blue and Gansey and the monster locked in battle, but he can’t lift his head to see how it is going. The sky swims above him, and it’s very bright. 

“I’m sorry about this,” Adam says, just before Ronan’s side explodes into fresh pain.

He screams, and the world wavers. 

“Ronan!” Gansey shouts. Ronan forces his gaze up, and watches as the dream creature takes advantage of Ganey’s distraction to dive at him. Blue shoves Gansey out of the way, almost impaling herself on his sword as she gets too close. Gansey is still watching Ronan, the blade held loose in his hand, and Blue has to dodge around it.

“Stay focused!” Blue yells, and flings another fireball at the ground, making her firewall flare enough to drive the monster back. In its flickering light, Ronan can see how pale Adam is. 

“Right,” Gansey says, visibly forcing his attention away from Ronan and back the the monster. He squares his shoulders and raises the blade, ready. Ronan knows that tone, that set of his shoulders, the confident line of his back. Gansey is going to win this one, or die trying. It’s one of Ronan’s worst fears, and it has never been so literal. 

Ronan’s side flares with pain, and he looks down to see what Adam is doing. “Is that a needle?” he asks dizzily.

“Stop talking,” Adam snaps. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Ronan asks, because he needs to say something, and he doesn’t know what else is left. His head is swimming, and it is only Noah’s hands on his side that keeps the pain bearable.

“Trust me,” Adam says, “I’m a doctor.”

“Bullshit,” Ronan gasps as he feels the needle go in. He feels foggy and far away. He has no idea what the leaves Adam made him swallow were, but it was some good shit. 

“If you don’t stop talking, I’m going to stop trying to save your life,” Adam threatens. 

“Liar,” Ronan mutters, but he falls silent after that. He rolls his head over to watch Gansey and Blue, letting Noah sink blessed cold into his side. 

Blue and Gansey are holding their own. The wall of fire keeps the monster at a manageable distance, and every time it gets close, Gansey is there, weapon at the ready. The monster is faltering, but every time it looks as though Blue and Gansey could get in close enough to finish it, it flies back out of range. They don’t dare chase it out of the carefully shielded area, don’t dare to leave Ronan and Adam defenseless, so the fight drags on. 

“There,” Adam says, and his voice shakes. His hands are steady. “The stitches are done. No, don’t move.” He still has his hands against Ronan’s side, just hovering, and his face is tight with concentration. 

Ronan looks over to where Blue and Gansey fight. They both wield their weapons with more enthusiasm than skill, and the monster is not the only one starting to show signs of strain. If it’s a matter of outlasting one another, Ronan isn’t sure who will win.

Ronan closes his hand tight on the handle of his knife. “Help me up,” he says. 

“What?” Adam says. He has his hands pressed to Ronan’s side, and the sharp smell of pine tree and aloe is coming from between his fingers. 

“Help. Me up.” Ronan says it slowly, like he would to a child. “I need to help them.”

“You can’t—” 

Ronan goes to push himself up, with or without Adam’s help. He can see a muscle jump in Adam’s jaw, then Adam grabs his elbow and helps him stand. 

“You’re a fucking moron,” he snarls, but he lets Ronan lead him to stand next to Gansey and Blue. The wall of fire is hot enough to warm Ronan’s face, but it’s already starting to flicker and die. 

Ronan hefts the dagger in his hand, feeling its weight. 

“How are you doing?” Gansey asks. This time, he keeps his gaze on the monster. 

“Fine. You?” Ronan’s tone is deliberately light.

“We have it injured, but it won’t get close enough to finish it off.” 

Ronan looks at the monster, at this terrible creature that he himself created. It’s slower now, its wing beats drag. It knows that if it lands, they’ll finish it. It’s only a matter of time before it’s instinct to retreat overwhelms its need to hurt them. And if it does, Cabeswater is an open area. It could go anywhere—they would never find it. 

Ronan throws the knife. 

It hits the monster in the meat of its left wing, and it screams as it falls. 

Ronan sways, even that motion pulling at his stomach, draining his strength. His knees buckle, and Adam is already there, helping him to the ground. 

Gansey and Blue rush forward like they’ve done this a hundred times before. Blue makes a gesture, the wall of fire dropping enough that they can step over it. She has her magic at the ready, prepared to defend Gansey, but he doesn't need it. Gansey runs it through, driving the sword all the way into the ground before the creature can make more than a weak swipe at him. For a moment, it lies there, pinned to the ground, screaming. Then Gansey pulls the sword out, blood glistening along the blade.

He slits its throat with more ruthlessness than Ronan would have expected of him. It only takes a few seconds for the screams to die out, for the monster to shudder to a gruesome death.

For a moment, they all stare at Gansey. His chest is heaving, sweat glistens on his skin in the light from the dying fire. He looks like an action hero. He looks like a king out of legend.

“Well,” Gansey says. He brushes his hair out of his eyes and leaves a dark smear of blood on his face. “That was exciting.”

The moment pops. 

Ronan, still collapsed on the ground, starts to laugh. He has to stop when it pulls at his stomach, but it feels good just to feel something good. 

“What the fuck,” Blue says, staring at the dream monster. Ronan frowns at her—she’s seen one before. Then she looks to Gansey. “What the fuck, Gansey.”

Gansey looks at the sword in his hand, then to Blue, then shrugs. As one they both look at Adam. Adam isn’t paying them any attention. His attention is on the flickering fire. Blue follows his gaze. 

“Adam?” 

He shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” But he doesn’t look away.

Slowly, watching Adam like he might break, Blue holds a hand out towards the fire. Her face creases in concentration, and she slowly makes a fist. The fire goes to low embers, then dies completely. The only sign of its passage is a thin line of scorched grass where it had stood. 

Adam shakes himself visibly. “Good job, Blue.”

Ronan half expects her to bristle at what could be seen as polite condescension, but she only smiles. “We were pretty badass, weren’t we?”

“The most badass,” Noah agrees.

Gansey stares down at the sword in his hand, his face unreadable.

“Gansey?” Blue asks, tone concerned. She reaches out her hand to touch his arm, and stops herself before she makes contact. Gansey doesn’t move.

Then, slowly, he raises his head to give Adam a baleful look. “This is the wrong mythology,” he says accusingly. 

Adam just stares at him. “What?”

“The sword!” Gansey lifts it, sees the blood still shining on it, and quickly lowers it back down. “In the water! It’s a King Arthur thing!”

Blue gives him an incredulous look. “Seriously?”

“There is no mythos of a sword in Glendower’s story,” Gansey protests. “Water, yes, sometimes, but they don’t pull anything out of it.”

“That’s what she said,” Ronan mutters to himself. Only Adam seems to hear him, and he turns to him with a small smile. Except, as soon as Adam meets his eyes, his smile falters, and his hands go to hover over Ronan’s wound. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

“The sword in the stone, or even the sword from the water, has always been intrinsically linked to King Arthur,” Gansey says, and Ronan can hear the start of a true rant in his voice. Someone needs to head him off before he gets too into it and goes on for hours, but Ronan does not have the energy.

Over their heads, Blue cocks her hip. “Oh, you know. These dead kings all look the same to me,” she drawls, and Gansey makes an indignant noise like a cat being trodden on. 

“King Arthur and Glendower have NOTHING to do with one another!” Gansey says, and it comes out more like a shriek. 

Ronan ignores them both, and nudges Adam’s hands aside to look at his wound. 

“Hm, yes. The magic, the betrayal, the connection to leylines, the promise to return in their nations’ time of need,” Blue ticks off the points on her fingers. “They have nothing in common.”

“It’s, it’s,” Gansey splutters. “It’s totally superficial!”

Any other time, Ronan would be poking fun at him, helping Blue to rile him up. But he can’t think of anything to say, can only stare at the place where, less than an hour ago, he had cuts so deep into his stomach that it could easily have killed him. 

Slowly, he raises his gaze to meet Adam’s eyes. 

“What the fuck.” 

He doesn’t say it loudly, but something in his inflection catches the attention of the others. Blue and Gansey both look over, and when they see the blood staining Ronan’s shirt, they fall silent. 

Where there should be deep gouges in Ronan’s stomach, there is a row of neat stitches. It’s still ghastly looking, but it has the pink tinged edges of skin that has been healing for days, if not weeks. 

“I told you,” Adam says calmly. “I’m a doctor.”

His arch tone is belied by the way he runs a hesitant finger just above the highest mark, leaving an icy trail in his wake. Ronan isn’t sure if it’s the chill or the contact that makes him shiver. 

"And I say again, bullshit," Ronan says, staring down at his own stomach. "Doctors can't do that."

Adam reaches down and pulls an aloe plant from the ground, where Ronan was sure there had been only grass before. He presses his hands together, the thorny stem completely enveloped between his long fingers. When he opens his palms again, he has a translucent green gel, which he carefully applies to Ronan's wounds. 

"They can when they're also a little bit magic," he says. 

Ronan makes a face at him. "I thought Adam wanted to be—" he stops, words trailing off. He has no idea what Adam wants to do with his life. Get out of Henrietta. Be respected. Make money. Adam has never mentioned any career aspirations beyond that. 

Adam would foster contacts at Gansey's parties but he had never made any mention of what he actually wanted to get from them. Ronan feels vaguely ashamed that he never thought to ask.

Adam glances at his face, and smiles. It's a quick, tight movement of the lips and there is no sincerity in it."Don't worry if you don't know. I didn't either. My goals were always very simple. Limited, even. I think that I always thought that I would figure it out when I got to college. That the right path would open itself up to me, that it would suddenly make sense." He laughs, and it sounds bitter. "I was very stupid."

"Hey," Ronan protests. Adam is many things—arrogant, frustrating, a pain in the ass and on occasion an utter bastard, but he is never, ever stupid.

This time, when Adam meets his eyes, there is affection in his face. "I didn't mean anything by it. It's easier to see these things in hindsight."

"Do you think that I'm stupid then?" Ronan challenges.

Adam purses his lips. "That's an unfair question," he says. His hands are still pressed to Ronan’s skin, and he moves to pull away. Ronan catches his wrist.

"I don't think so."

"Well," Adam looks amused, "you wouldn't."

Ronan tightens his grip on Adam's wrist and doesn't say anything. Adam sighs. "No, Ronan. I don't think that you are stupid. I never," he swallows, "I never once thought that you were stupid."

"Not once?" he asks, startled. Disbelieving. His hold on Adam falls slack, then drops. He shouldn’t be surprised, and yet.

Adam laughs. "Well, maybe once or twice. When you would get into those godawful street races. But that was stuff that you did. I never thought that you, Ronan Lynch, were stupid."

Ronan holds Adam's gaze for a minute, and he doesn't see any lie. He smiles.

"This is all super nice and all," Blue says. "I’m really happy about your emotional revelation and all that shit. It's good for Ronan to attempt to interact with other humans, but can we just—" she points at the dream monster, broken and bleeding and very dead on the ground. "What was that."

Ronan goes tense. God, he had brought it here. It had almost killed them. He ducks his head. "I'm—"

"Don't apologize," Blue snaps. "I know it's not your fault. I'm asking how it happened. I thought we were supposed to be shielded against magical attacks."

"We are," Ronan and Adam say together. Adam nods for Ronan to continue. "That was the only reason it wasn't worse." He shudders, remembering the cold, terrible presence of the Third Sleeper in the dream. "It was—Cabeswater wasn't warded against any of us. And this was one of mine."

He feels sick, looking at it. Thinking about how close they were to dying. 

"So," Blue bites her lip. "What do we do?"

Ronan opens his mouth, but he doesn't have anything to offer that isn't unhelpful or self-pitying, so he closes it again.

"You prepare," Adam says. "You train. And you learn to work together."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Blue take Gansey's hand. Then, to his surprise, she takes his as well. Ronan meets her eyes, and Blue smiles at him. He smiles back, hesitant. Slowly, carefully, he takes Adam's hand. 

Adam squeezes his fingers. 

"You're going to be fine," he says, like it's a secret. "You are going to be magic."

Gasney laughs, and shoves Adam with his free hand. "Have you been waiting all day to say that?" 

"A bit, yeah," Adam says. 

For a moment, they sit there, and Cabeswater is peaceful and calm. 

Then Noah flickers back in, and his face is pale. “Blue,” he says. “Your shoulder.”

Blue turns to look at her shoulder like she has never seen it before. “Oh.” She stares at the three vertical lines that cut through the fabric, bleeding onto her dress. “That’s not good.”

“Jane!” Gansey gets to his knees, hovering over her. “God, doesn’t that hurt?”

Blue’s face pinches. “You know, now that you mention it.”

“Jane!” Gansey says again. He reaches out, then pulls back. “Can you do anything?” he asks Adam.

Adam leans over, letting Ronan’s hand falls from his own. “This isn’t that deep. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Blue mimics in an airy falsetto. “Thank goodness we have Houdini here.”

Adam gives her a dirty look. “Do you want my magic hands or not?”

“Oooh, kinky,” Ronan drawls. It’s nice to see that he can still make even this Adam go red.

“You’re an asshole,” Adam says lowly. Ronan yawns at him.

“Blue, you need to take off your shirt,” Adam says. Gansey yelps, and Blue’s eyes go wide. 

“What?”

Adam puts a hand on her shoulder, just over the cuts. “Just kidding.” He closes his eyes, his expression going intent and distant. When he pulls back, the skin is knit up, only pink lines showing.

“You’ll live, Ms. Sargent,” he says seriously. 

Blue rolls her eyes. “Thank god.”

Then Adam sways dangerously, and almost falls. Gansey catches him. 

“Adam?”

Blue’s face is pale. “Did I?” her hands flutter at her sides, nervous. “Was that me? Did I pull too much from—”

“No,” Adam waves her off. “No, I’m fine. I just used too much magic. It’s nothing dangerous.”

It’s easier now for Ronan to pull himself into a sitting position. “I don’t believe you.”

Adam gives him a dirty look. “Would I lie to you?” 

“Yes,” Gansey answers promptly.

“Without hesitation,” Blue adds.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve lied three times in the past two hours,” Ronan says, and he has to grin at the look on Adam’s face. 

“I just need to lie down for a second,” he says, leaning away from Gansey’s hands. “Just for a bit.”

Ronan goes utterly still when Adam stretches out, resting his head on Ronan’s thigh without a moment of hesitation, without a thought to how incredibly fucking weird it is.

“Um.” He looks up at the others, wide-eyed. Blue clasps her hands to her mouth to stop a laugh from escaping. Gansey, the asshole, just looks at them both with affection.

“You look precious,” he whispers. 

Ronan flips him off. 

* * *

The ride to Cabeswater takes almost an hour. Blue and Gansey are both hesitant about even letting him get an idea of where the Glens are, but Adam had drawn the line at letting them blindfold him. 

They all pile into Gansey’s luridly green car, and it feels almost like the Pig, almost familiar. Still, for all the car’s bright colors, Adam knows cars well enough to tell that this car runs at least twice as well as the Pig ever had. 

“What happened to the Camaro?” he hisses at Ronan, who is squeezed into the back alongside him. There is even more of Ronan to squeeze, and it’s a tight fit.

Ronan just shakes his head. “Dark times, Parrish. Dark times.”

Adam looks at the way Gansey’s hands are clenched on the unfamiliar steering wheel, and doesn’t press. It would take something truly serious to make Gansey give up on his beloved car. 

“Give me that,” he says instead, holding out his hand for the roll of gauze Ronan is clumsily wrapping around his own arm. Ronan has the spare end clenched tight in his teeth, holding it steady. When he just stares at Adam, Adam makes a grabby motion with his hand until Ronan slowly presses the roll into his hand. 

“You don’t need to—”

“Shut up.” Adam frowns as he stares at Ronan’s arms. The cuts are no longer bleeding, but they still look nasty. “Did you even clean this out?”

The dirty look that Ronan gives him is as good as an answer. Adam leans forward into the low median between the two front seats. “Blue, do you have any Neosporin?”

Blue, who had provided them the gauze from the overstocked first-aid kit that they all apparently felt necessary to keep in the glove box, passes some over. The tube has never been opened. 

“Do you ever clean your wounds out?” Adam demands, because he isn’t sure how else to vent the anger he feels every time he catches sight of the new cuts crossing the already deep scars on Ronan’s arm. 

“I don’t usually need to,” Ronan says, eyeing the Neosporin with suspicion. 

“Do you usually just let your limbs rot off?” Adam says, breaking the seal. “I can’t believe that Gansey lets you get away with that.”

“Don’t look at me,” Gansey says. He doesn’t even have to yell over the roar of an over-taxed engine. “Usually you just do your magic thing.” Adam looks up sharply, just in time to see Blue shove an elbow into Gansey’s side. “What!” Gansey protests. “He needs to know things!”

“What magic thing?” Adam asks. He slaps Ronan’s hand away when Ronan tries to take the gauze back from him. 

Blue sighs. “It’s a thing you do. It’s healing? Sort of?”

“I can heal people?” Adam demands, feeling something desperate and eager burst inside of him. 

“Slow down, Florence Nightingale,” Blue says. “I said sort of. You can’t heal major wounds, just scrapes. None of this cure the blind, heal the sick Messiah schtick. You just, help.” She looks at the tube in his hand. “Like Neosporin.”

“Like Neosporin,” Adam repeats, incredulous. 

“Can I please bandage my arms now?” Ronan says. “I’m going to bleed on the upholstery.”

“Don’t you dare,” Gansey says.

“You’re good with organic things,” Blue says. “I don’t know, you never explained it to me. I think you thought it made you look more impressive and mysterious.”

Adam wants to feel offended, but he isn’t surprised. It wouldn’t be what she thought though. It wasn’t about looking cool—it never was. If no one knew how you did it, they could never replace you. The trick was to learn the one thing that no one else could do, and do it the best. Make yourself indispensable. 

And look where that got him, Adam thinks angrily, staring down at the tube of Neosporin in his hands. Blue can’t even walk him through the basics of it.

“Great,” he says, and squirts the gel into his hands. “Give me your arm.”

Ronan hisses when Adam presses it into his skin, carefully smoothing it around the edges of the cuts, and over the tops of the shallow ones. 

“Watch it,” Ronan mutters, jerking when Adam goes over a particularly deep cut. 

“Stop being such a baby,” Adam says, and he can feel it when Ronan goes still. “What?”

“Adam always says that.” Ronan is looking at him with something that is almost surprise, and there is something open and vulnerable in his face.

Adam feels the back of his neck heat up. He coughs, not sure how to respond to that look on Ronan’s face. “Maybe you should stop being a baby all the time then,” he says. “Then he won’t need to say it as much.”

“I don’t mind.” Ronan says softly. “It’s how he shows affection.”

Adam feels flushed all over, and the sudden temptation to throw himself out of the moving car is almost overwhelming. He feels so very  _ known _ , and he has no idea how to handle it. Instead of replying, he tucks the free end of the bandage between Ronan’s thumb and palm, and slowly starts to wind it over Ronan’s arms. 

Ronan holds perfectly still, letting Adam wrap his arms in loose, unexperienced loops. The small space of the car feel enclosed and intimate, and Adam almost forgets that Blue and Gansey are even in the car with them. When he finishes, he carefully tucks the final edge of the bandage up into the rest of it, and holds Ronan’s hand between two of his own. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again. He’s never said sorry this much in his life. Part of him wants to protest that it was Ronan’s fault, that Ronan shouldn’t have grabbed him, that he should have just left Adam alone, and this never would have happened. But every time that thought crosses his mind, he sees the way that Ronan had looked at him, arms bleeding into his shirt and over his pale skin and still looking so worried for Adam. 

Ronan deserves his apologies, even if Adam is terrible at them.

Ronan, unaware of—or, more likely, unconcerned by—Adam’s inner turmoil, just rolls his eyes. “Don’t be, dumbass. Magic isn’t easy to control. It’s not a science. That’s kind of what makes it magic.”

Adam shrugs, running his fingers lightly over Ronan’s palm. The bandages are terribly wrapped, he thinks. Maybe he should have let Ronan wrap his own arm after all. 

“Seriously,” Ronan says, catching Adam’s hand in his own and making Adam look at him. “You think that none of us ever fucked up? I’ve brought nightmare creatures out of—”

Adam draws in a breath so sharply that he jerks his hand out of Ronan’s completely. He’d let himself almost forget about Ronan’s nightmare creature—about what his Ronan could be facing. He feels abruptly sick.

“Gansey,” Ronan says, not looking away from Adam’s face. Adam wonders what he sees there. “Drive faster.”

Adam feels Ronan’s hand come down on his shoulder, and he can’t even feel comforted by it. 

It’s disquieting, the way that Adam can tell as soon as they cross into Cabeswater. He can feel it prickle under his skin, a tingling awareness that makes him feel as though he is about to climb out of his own skin.

Something is wrong.

Adam can feel goosebumps rising up on his arms, on the back of his neck. 

"You can feel it, can't you?" 

Adam turns to look at Ronan, who is watching him with dark, intent eyes. Behind him, the familiar scenery of Henrietta goes past. Blue had insisted on taking a route that would skirt the nominative downtown, in case the sight of whatever building replaced the torn-down Costco caused his life to descend into a self-fulfilling death spiral.

It all looks fine, normal.

None of this explains the chills that Adam can feel creeping along his spine.

"What happened here?" he asks.

Ronan's hand tightens on his shoulder, then slips down Adam's arm to hold his hand. (Adam has the sudden sense memory of Ronan in his dreams, his Ronan, the one who may be dying right now, ten years ago, doing the same thing. He shivers.)

He should pull away, he know. Ronan doesn't want him, doesn't want this broken, angry version of Adam. And Adam has no idea what he wants. 

He lets Ronan take his hand. In the wrongness that surrounds him, Ronan feels like the only thing that is right. Adam feels cold down to his bones, and Ronan is so warm. 

Adam can't put a word to the feeling, but he gets more tense the closer they get to Cabeswater proper. His muscles are coiled tight with it, and he thinks that if he could, he might jump out of the car itself and run all the way back to the sheltered safety of the Glens.

"We're almost there," Blue says from the front seat. Her voice is soft, serious. "Brace yourself."

Against what, Adam wants to ask. He doesn't need to. He can already feel it. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 

When Gansey's car makes the final turn to Cabeswater, Adam feels a gasp leave his mouth before he can stop it. 

He's seen pictures of a forest after a fire before. This is nothing like that. This is so much worse. 

The land is scarred and burned, the majestic trees that have stood for centuries, millennia, the ones that Gansey is so sure house an ancient, sleeping king, are gone. In their place are low, burnt down stumps. Some of them smoke as though the fire itself was just yesterday. Some of them still have embers flowing in their hearts, a mocking parody of life.

The car has barely come to a stop when Adam forces the door open and retches violently. The wrongness is shaking him, tearing at him from the inside. He throws up until all that comes up is bile, and he can still feel the terribleness of what happened here like sickness in his chest.

When he comes to, he can feel Ronan making soothing circles on his back.

"This is why I didn't want to take him here," Blue is telling the others.

"This was your idea," Ronan snaps in response, but his hand doesn't stop its motion. 

"You approved of it!" Blue says. 

Gansey crouches down by Adam's side. "Shut up, everyone," he says, and his voice is calm. Adam hadn't even heard him get out of the car. "Are you ok?

Adam manages to lift his head. He feels shaky and weak, and his mouth tastes terrible. Gansey presses a water bottle into his hands, moving back so that Adam has room to rinse and spit. 

He does this twice more, and he has to smile when Gansey offers him a mint leaf. It’s reassuringly familiar.

"I'm fine," Adam says, waving them off. It's a lie. He can still feel nausea roiling in his stomach, twisting in his gut. He's pretty sure that if there were anything left in his stomach, he would still be throwing up. 

"I didn't think that it would be this bad," Blue says to Ronan in an undertone.

Ronan's hand is still a comforting weight on Adam's back, but out of the corner of his eye, Adam can see Ronan's other hand clench into a fist. 

"That's because he's been hiding how badly it affects him," Ronan says, and the words come out as a snarl. "That stubborn bastard."

"Hey," Adam protests weakly. "That's your husband you're talking about."

Ronan's hand goes still. 

Adam feels himself go tense again, and this time it's not from Cabeswater. Has he referred to himself as Ronan's husband before?

He doesn't think that he has.

"Can you stand?" Gansey asks, breaking into the moment of tension. He gets to his feet and offers a hand down to Adam.

Adam takes it, and he stubbornly forces strength into his knees. He is not going to swoon into Gansey's arms. He's not going to swoon into anyone's arms. 

"What happened here?" he asks again. The others all look at one another, exchanging worried looks. 

It's Gansey who finally answers. "War."

Adam trails his eyes from the burned shell of Cabeswater to the scars that cross over Gansey's face and hand. 

What had happened here, that had taken so much?

This close, he can see that the damage does not cover all of what he would consider Cabeswater, but it's enough of it. There are still a few trees left standing, enough that it might even still be called a forest. But Cabeswater itself is damaged, hurting. 

And yet, once he pushes past the suddenness of it, the nauseating ache of what should be there and isn't, he can sense something else. 

Adam steps away from Gansey's steadying hand, away from Blue's concerned eyes, away from Ronan. 

It's like looking at a mirage. The pressing wrongness of it is so distracting, but if he turns his head too quickly, he can see the places where trees should be. No. He can see the places where trees are. 

Adam shakes his head, trying to ward off the sudden double vision. 

"Something is," he trails off. He doesn't have words for what he is seeing. Or what he thinks that he sees. 

He takes another step forward, and the sense of wrongness grows. 

The grass underneath him is charred. It has to have been years—Gansey's face is rough with old scars, not shiny with new ones—but the trees look as though they were burning just yesterday.

In places, the grass is more than charred, it's scorched clear away. In the empty places it leaves behind, the ground is pale and wrong, and looks like flesh scored down to the bone. 

It gives Adam shivers just to look at it. 

He feels dizzy and sick, and he has to stop and swallow twice before he can continue. "There are no birds," he says absently.

"No," Ronan agrees. He, Gansey and Blue are standing at what, from anyone else, Adam might call a respectful distance. "Not for years."

Adam sees another flash of something out of the corner of his eyes, but when he turns his head to look, it's gone. 

"I need to see the clearing," he says, sure of himself. 

The others all exchange looks, but they don't stop him. 

They don't need to lead him, either. Adam could make the trek with his eyes closed, can feel in every part of him. There are fallen trees blocking familiar paths, and desiccated tree stumps where there should be green leaves, but he knows where he is going. 

The press of wrongness is heavy and terrible, but it feels more and more like a heavy coat in the summer. It's wrong and too hot and it's making him nauseous, but it's just a cover. There is something underneath, and Adam can almost feel it, almost reach it. 

The coat only gets heavier the closer he gets to the clearing, and he has to step to retch twice more—shaking off Gansey's steadying hands each time. Blue and Ronan hang back, and neither of them try to touch him.

Guilt, he thinks. 

It hadn't been his idea to come here, but only because he hadn't known that it was an option. He would have been here on the first day, if he had know it was possible. 

He doesn't know how he is going to get back, but the answer is here.

(Something in him feels as though, if he can just get to the clearing, he will return to that dreamspace. He will be here, and his Ronan will be waiting, whole and unharmed and affectionate. And his Ronan will look at him like that, with want and heat and something that Adam may never be ready to name, but wants to badly.)

Suddenly, Gansey puts out a hand and catches Adam's arm. "This isn't right," Gansey says. He's looking around with suspicious eyes, and it's an unfamiliar look on him.

Gansey barely has to turn his head to look at Ronan and Blue—they are at his side before he even finishes speaking, flanking him easily. Adam feels alone, looking at them. Standing here, arranged like this, they have never looked more unified.

More than that—they look battle-ready. They are the knights to Gansey's king, and Adam has no place here. 

"What's wrong?" he asks. If anything, it feels better here. He feels less sick, less like there is a sickness trying to carve its way out of him.

Gansey stretches out a hand, but stops himself before he touches the tree he means. "This wasn't here the last time."

"So?" Adam asks. "It's a forest. Things change." He knows how stupid the words sound as soon as they leave his mouth. Cabeswater is a forest in the same way that Ronan is a boy. It may, technically, be true, but it is so far from the truth as to be almost wholly inaccurate.

"Cabeswater was damaged. It hasn't changed in almost ten years."

Gansey isn't looking at Adam as he speaks, but the words are like a bucket of ice water. They've all been so careful about not letting anything slip, but this. Ten years ago would put it at just after Adam left. The war is sooner than Adam had feared. 

"Ronan?" Gansey asks, and Ronan nods. He slips around Gansey, easy and liquid. It's all as choreographed as a dance. 

Ronan closes his eyes and tilts his head. Adam watches him. Ronan looks relaxed, almost peaceful, except for the way he is so clearly expectant. 

When Ronan's eyes open, they're out of focus. "No one has been here," he says. And then his eyes slide to Adam. "Except the ghost of a dream."

The wind picks up, and it roars unexpectedly through the clearing. Blue and Gansey both jump. Adam and Ronan do not. Adam stands perfectly still and lets it swirl around him. He closes his own eyes, lets the wind surround him like a small tornado, feels it tighten with familiarity around his ribs, then release. 

He understood the words Cabeswater says to him, but he lets Ronan repeat them anyway.

"Welcome." Ronan says, and his voice is hoarse. "Welcome back, Magician."

\--

Adam feels himself being drawn forward. The clearing is just up ahead, and he knows that he needs to get there. That is the source of his nausea, and the source of the bubbling feeling inside of him that feels so apart from the the sickness.

When he steps through, it's like nothing has changed from his time. The grass is lush and vibrant, the trees dip their leaves almost to the ground, creating isolated pockets of space. The pond is clear and bright, reflecting sunlight.

Then he blinks, and it's like being in a nightmare. Everything melts, grotesquely dissolving into everything that is wrong.

The pond is dry. It shouldn't be the first thing that he sees, but it calls his attention. It had been the first indication of magic in this place, and now it is desiccated and wrong. The shells that had seemed to sparkle at the bottom now sit, dry and abandoned. They look like chips of bone. 

Unlike the rest of Cabeswater, this area doesn't look like a fire had swept through. It looks as though a bomb had gone off. 

The few trees standing are still smoking. The clearing smells like charred flesh and death. 

Then Adam's gaze falls on the tree just to the left of the pond. The spot where, just last night, he had been sitting when Ronan had approached him out of the mist.

Ronan had made it seem better though, had made the mist recede. Ronan had pushed him against the tree and had let Adam take and take and take. 

And now it is barely a stump. Embers glow from the husk, and it looks twisted, wrong. Decaying. 

Adam tries not to look, but he thinks that he can see blood stains where Ronan had fallen, collapsing under the claws of a dream monster Adam had not been able to fight. 

He gags, and nothing comes up. 

Then Ronan is there, taking Adam's elbow, and the serene, peaceful Cabeswater snaps back into place.

The shock of it is so sudden that he reels, dizzy and off-balance. Out of instinct, he yanks himself out of Ronan’s grip. Ronan lets him, and Adam almost falls. 

The full, uninhibited weight of Cabeswater’s sickness hits him again, the image of the Cabeswater Adam is familiar with falls away. He sways, and has to swallow to force down the bile. He feels confused and muddled, his head swimming. He’s not sure what is real. He can feel Cabeswater as a cool spring inside of him, full of life and power. But at the same time, he can feel its sickness and death, pulling at his edges like a hungry tide. 

He hears Gansey from a long way away, expressing concern. The words are meaningless to him, he can’t understand them. 

Ronan comes up on his side and says something. It sounds jumbled and wrong and Adam can only stare at him in baffled alarm. 

Ronan frowns, reaches out as if to touch Adam’s face, then lets his hand drop. After a moment, he speaks again and this time Adam can understand him. 

“Are you alright?” Ronan asks. Adam can feel Cabeswater draining his energy, like Noah on his worst days, but without the consciousness. He feels stretched thin, and he has no energy to lie. He shakes his head, and flinches back when Ronan tries to touch him.

He can see two possibilities, two Cabeswaters, and it’s making his head split in down the middle. It’s wrong, it’s impossible, and it’s almost more than his mind can handle. 

“What do you see?” Ronan asks, and he waves off Gansey and Blue when they try to come closer. 

“Everything,” he chokes out. 

Some instinct, some part of him that understands the Tarot cards and can summon wildflowers and make thorns appear from the air, drives him forward. He walks in slow, careful steps until he reaches the pond, and his knees buckle. The others follow, cautious, concerned. 

“I think,” he almost chokes on the word. “I think I need to fix this.” 

Gansey opens his mouth, and Blue slaps her hand over it. 

Ronan kneels down next to him. “What do you need?”

Wordless, Adam holds out his hand. Ronan doesn’t hesitate, not for a second. He takes Adam’s hand in his own. This time, the clean Cabeswater doesn’t overwhelm him. This time, Adam grips the image tight, and makes the two realities work together, refusing to be swamped. 

“I just need to,” he trails off, staring into the pond. He can see it two ways, with and without water.

In school, he had seen images of optical illusions, the ones that were so solidly one thing, until someone else pointed out another. Sometimes, he could see both, but usually his mind would center on one, until he switched to the other. It takes concentration to hold them both in his mind.

This is not unlike that. 

Adam holds out his other hand, and Blue takes it, already holding onto Gansey. Wordless, Adam plunges their joined hands into where the water is and is not. 

He can feel it lapping at his wrist, cool and refreshing. He can feel heat radiating off the scorched earth. 

Adam reaches into where he can still feels Cabeswater—his Cabeswater, he realizes, the one that he is still bound too, because what is time to a magical forest—and pulls. 

Gansey makes a noise of exclamation, and the heat coming off the scorched bottom of the pond recedes. The phantom touch of water on his hands becomes more real, more solid. Ronan and Blue still have a tight grip on his hand, but now it feels cool and the slippery. He clenches tighter. 

Adam opens his eyes. There is water filling the pond, flowing from the center like a hidden well has been suddenly uncapped. It carries the scent of growing things, of life and trees and cool moss.

“Adam,” Ronan says, and his voice is low and reverent. Adam looks at him, and he has to look away. He can’t handle that expression on Ronan’s face, can’t take it. 

He gets to his feet, letting Ronan help him up. Blue’s hand drops from his, but he keeps hold of Ronan. He needs Ronan for this bit, this personal piece of magic that feels so much a part of them both.

When he settles his hand on the bark of the tree, Cabeswater reaches back to him. It’s a welcome and a warning and a recognition. He gets every moment of time spent at this tree in his mind at once—he sees Gansey leaning back against it, Blue’s head just shy of resting on his leg. He sees Noah trying and failing to braid flowers into Blue’s hair. 

He sees his future self, showing Blue how to make the same kind of bubbles she had thrown at him in the Glens. He can see Ronan pressing him back into the tree, because dreams are the substance upon which Cabeswater has been built. He sees fire and anger and rage and he closes his eyes against it, clenches Ronan’s hand and—Adam reaches into the well of life that seems to make up his core, and presses. 

He know that it is working before he even opens his eyes, can feel the heavy shackles of decay and death falling away. A breeze runs through the clearing, ruffling hair. 

Half blind, Adam stumbles from tree to tree, pulling Ronan behind him, feeling when Blue will reach out to lend support with a hand on his shoulder, when Gansey will steady him. He can feel Cabeswater coming to life around him, can feel it healing. But he can also feel the toll it takes on him. The life and the power are Cabeswater, his own Cabeswater, an endless pool that he holds inside of himself—but the energy to make it works comes from him.

Ronan catches him when his knees give out. 

\--

When he looks up, he can see the green canopy of proper leaves, and Cabeswater is humming with thanks.

Adam sees Ronan’s lips move before he hears the words, and he frowns. 

“Are you speaking Latin?” he asks. 

Ronan grins. “He’s back.”

Gansey and Blue drop down beside him, looking relieved. There is something like wonder in their faces, and Adam turns his face away from it, uncomfortable. 

“Why are you speaking Latin?” he asks, addressing the question to Ronan’s collarbone, the closest part of Ronan that he can see. 

“You didn’t notice?” Gansey asks, and there is the familiar marvel of the unknown in his voice, his Glendower voice. “You were speaking it yourself, just now.”

“I don’t think you were even understanding English,” Blue says, and there is a small smile tugging at her lips. She brushes his hair back from his face. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Adam looks past her, at the towering trees and the fresh breeze. “Did I do that?”

Blue grins, and Gansey laughs outright. “Yes, you did, you magnificent bastard!” He claps Adam on the shoulder, and his hand lingers. When Gansey looks around at the clearing, his face is wide open. “We finally have it back. Adam, I could kiss you.”

There is a moment, where they all expect Ronan to make a joking remark, and he doesn’t. 

When Adam tilts his head, he can see that Ronan is pale. Now that he is paying attention, he can feel Ronan’s hands shaking. 

“Ronan?” Adam asks, concerned. Had he pulled some of the magic from Ronan without meaning to?

Ronan’s hands tighten around him, and Adam makes a startled noise as Ronan pulls him into a hug. 

Adam has to make an effort not to pull away from the sudden movement, but then he lets himself relax into it, leaning his forehead onto Ronan’s shoulder. He has never been a hugger, but he feels momentarily safe. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” Ronan snarls, pressing his face into Adam’s hair. “You crazy fucker, don’t ever do that. I could feel it—it was draining you. God, Adam.”

Adam fists his hands into the thin fabric of Ronan’s shirt. “I’m okay,” he says, pressing the words into Ronan’s skin. “I’m alright.”

Ronan pulls back, just enough to look into Adam’s face. “Your life matters, you asshole. Don’t ever think otherwise. It’s not your job to keep sacrificing yourself for us.”

Adam feels his throat go tight, feels heat prickle at the corners of his eyes. He looks away.

Ronan jerks Adam’s face back to his. “I mean it. You think—I don’t even know what you think. I’ve never understood the inside of your twisted mind. But just—you matter. Okay? You matter to me.” He looks around, at Gansey and Blue, who have backed away to give them both privacy. “To all of us. We can’t lose you.”

Adam wants to shrug it away, to laugh it off. Of course he matters—who will fix the Pig. Who will keep the leylines active. Who will make sure that Ronan does his homework—well, no. That’s always been Gansey. But there are countless other small, unimportant roles he fulfills in their little group—and Ronan doesn’t mean any of those. He just means Adam, who Adam is. Everything that Adam manages to accomplish just by being Adam Parrish. 

“Got it?” Ronan asks. He has a hand on the back of Adam’s neck, and Adam couldn’t look away if he wanted to. (He doesn’t want to.) Adam just nods, unable to speak.

“He’s right,” Blue says, folding herself down next to them. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t have put it like that,” Gansey says. He sits so that he leans heavy against Blue’s side. They are both so focused on Adam, but he suddenly sees it. Whatever it is that connects the two of them, whatever it is that he never had with Blue. The thing that he might have a chance of having with Ronan, if he doesn’t fuck it up.

The sudden desire to see his own Ronan wells up in him. 

His hand drops from this Ronan’s back. He feels dizzy. Cabeswater is lurching up within him, again. 

Ronan’s face above him tightens, goes pale with concern. 

Adam clenches his hand in the soft grass. Ronan is still supporting all of his weight, and he trusts Ronan not to drop him. He is so tired, it would be so very nice to just lie back, to close this eyes.

Cabeswater is in him, all around him, pushing at the borders of his skin until Adam feels as though he will burst into full bloom himself.

“I’m okay,” he gasps out, because Ronan looks so worried. “I’m fine.” 

He reaches out to Ronan—reaches with his left hand. His right hand is clenched in the grass, and he feels as though it has already become one with Cabeswater. He wonders distantly if he has put down roots himself.

Carefully, he smooths a worry line from Ronan’s face, feeling affection well up inside of him. “You don’t need to worry about me.” And then, because he feels as though it has to be said, that Ronan needs to know—or at the very least, that Adam needs to tell him—“I’m so glad that I married you.”

It’s probably the most honest thing he’s ever said, if only because it’s a truth he managed to keep even from himself, and knows that it is true only in saying it now. 

The last thing he sees is the expression on Ronan’s face, a painful cross between elation and anguish, and he regrets having caused it. 

Then everything is dark. 

* * *

Adam's head is pounding. He presses a hand to it, and his fingers come away wet with blood. Then he blinks, and it's just water.

When he sits up, he feels off balance and strange. He's back in Cabeswater, or still in Cabeswater. He isn't sure which. 

His hair is wet, and when he puts an arm back to push himself up, he feels his hand get wet up to the wrist. He looks back and has to stifle a scream. It's blood, a giant spreading pool of it. It sweeps out all around him, it's on his clothes, in his hair, sinking into his skin. And he knows, knows with the bone deep certainty of dream knowledge, that it isn't his. 

A heavy mist obscures the rest of the clearing, but it's a bold and glaring white, utterly different from what had choked the air in his dream earlier. Through it, he can make out the low form of bodies, and he wants to scream. 

Then he shakes his head, blinks, and it's gone. It's just Cabeswater, and he has stuck his hand in the pond. 

There are no bodies.

"Hello?" he hears, a form coming out of the mist, and his heart leaps into his throat. 

"Ronan?" he asks, desperately wanting it to be true. 

“No," the form replies, “I’m sorry,” and Adam knows that voice, even if he's never heard it like this before. 

Adam scrambles to his feet, and for a moment he thinks that he sees blood—under his hands, his feet, in spreading pools around him—again, but he forces it away.

He's expecting it, but it's still a surprise to see his own face coming at him out of the mist. 

He doesn't know what to say, doesn’t know what to do. How does one react to meeting one’s future self?

He thinks of how Gansey would react, so full of questions and excitement and wonder. He can’t be that, can’t even fake excitement at meeting a future self who has everything Adam has ever wanted. But there are other things he can fake. He thinks of how Gansey would be so confident, so sure that he would like whatever future awaited him, and Adam tries to be some of that. He straightens, trying to make himself look less of a child—as if there is anyway he can make himself look less inferior. He forces confidence into his voice, into his tone. 

"Parrish." Let the older Adam be the one who is addressed by his last name, at least Adam can keep the familiarity of his own name. 

"It's Parrish-Lynch, actually," Parrish says, and Adam flinches, just a bit, before he can stifle the reaction.

This close, he can see that there are difference between them. It's to be expected, with ten years between them. He's seen how the others looked, how much Ronan and Blue and Gansey had changed. He just hadn't thought to see it in himself. 

Parrish is broader than he is, wider at the shoulders and across the chest. His hair looks as though it was cut by a professional, and not by the nun who sometimes looked in on Adam when she had a spare afternoon. He's still tan, but it looks good on him. He, at least, doesn't look like a farmhand left too long in the sun. He looks like the kind of tan that Gansey gets, from summers spent in luxury, on yachts and beaches and vacations to the Bahamas. 

Parrish spreads his arms a little to the side, allowing himself to be examined. He seems utterly at ease, comfortable under scrutiny—sure that the looker will find nothing to look down on. 

In contrast, Adam pulls his arms in, feeling small and unkempt. He knows that wrapping his arms around himself makes him look weak, makes him look like a child. He forces his arms to his side instead.

"Well?" Parrish asks, the hint of a smirk lingering on his face. “Am I what you were expecting?”

"I don't know what I was expecting," Adam says. It feels like a lie. Parrish looks different, but not as different as Adam had thought. He hadn’t truly had expectations, that much is true, but Parrish manages to utterly defy them all the same. 

He was expecting someone so different from him. Someone who was clearly a stranger. Someone who Ronan could love, who Gansey could rely on, who Blue could trust. But Parrish just looks like him.

And he doesn't know what to do with that.

Parrish studies him. "You're not what I was expecting either."

Adam scoffs. "You knew what to expect. You were me."

"Ten years ago.”

Adam looks around at their surroundings. "Do you remember this? Do you remember talking to your older self?"

Parrish makes a so-so gesture at his own head. "Only a little. This is just a dream, you know. And we don't always remember our dreams."

Adam scowls. "I hate that. The plot twist where it was all a dream the whole time. It invalidates the entire thing."

Parrish actually throws back his head to laugh, and it's such a Gansey move that it takes Adam by surprise. "Just this, kid. Just this. Everything else was real. You didn't think that we could talk like this in the real world?"

"And everything,"—older Ronan, learning magic, healing Cabeswater, the hundreds of impossible things he's seen over the past few days— "it all happened."

"Yes."

Adam doesn’t how to feel about that, doesn’t know how he should feel. It complicates things; his life would be much easier if it had all been the product of his own mind. And yet, he’s glad. He feels relieved. He’s not sure that he wants Parrish to know that. "Don't call me kid."

Parrish watches him, cool, speculative. Does Adam look that impassive? That icily dismissive? "What should I call you?"

"Adam."

Parrish grins. It's a very nice grin. Adam doesn't like it. "Alright."

Adam gives Parrish a suspicious look. He hadn't expected him to agree to quickly. 

"What do you really want to ask me?" Parrish asks. He sounds like a parody of an ancient Sage from B-movie. The Mr. Miyagi of dream science. It's annoying. If Adam is this annoying, no wonder Ronan is always pissed at him.

Still, there are hundreds of things he wants to ask, thousands. He could ask for as long as this dream spanned between them and never run out of questions. 

"Is Ronan okay?" is what comes out first. He must be. Future Ronan had been fine, only silvery scars showing from the monster's claws, but Adam has to know. 

Parrish looks pleased, but not surprised. "He's fine." 

Adam feels like all the tension bleeds out of him. "Thank god."

When he looks back up, Parrish is giving him a long, searching look. 

"What?"

"You don't deserve him," Parrish says. Adam flinches.

"What?" He means it to come out indignant, to be a fight. It comes out tentative, a weak question. A concern. 

Parrish runs a hand through his hair. "It's not your fault. But you're young and stupid and selfish, and he deserves better than you. Better than us."

"I know that," Adam says. Because he does. It's obvious. Ronan deserves to be happy, to feel safe and secure and to never have another dream monster chase him awake again. Adam has no idea how to make another human happy, and he doubts that he would be any good at it. Ronan deserves someone who will put him first, above everything. Adam doesn’t know if he can do that. 

Parrish sinks down to the ground at the base of a tree—not the one that Adam had shared with Ronan, to his great relief—and indicates that Adam should sit next to him. Adam does, wary and distrustful. 

"I'm not saying that to be mean," Parrish says. "But I just—" he looks away, and for the first time, he looks something other than perfectly contained. "I hurt him."

Adam bristles. "And maybe I won't.” He wants it to be true, God, he does. “I know better, this time."

Parrish gives him a sad, pitying look, and Adam can't hold his gaze. The gaze that looks so similar to what Adam has seen out of his mirror hundreds of times. 

"You won't do it on purpose," Parrish says. "And if it helps, he is going to hurt you too."

"Shouldn't you be protecting me, then?" Adam asks, and he knows the answer before he has even finished speaking. 

“I'm not here to be your fairy godmother. Ronan will hurt you, and you’ll learn to move past it, and you’ll be happy with him, so it’s all worth it. I don't regret the things that I had to do, or to feel, to get here. But I would spare Ronan, if I could. I wish I could do it again, without hurting him."

Adam watches as the grass shifts under a slight breeze. “So do I,” he admits. 

“What if I told you to stay away from him?” Parrish asks. “What if I told you that he would be happier without you, and that you should let him move on, right now, before it’s too late.”

Adam closes his eyes. Could he do that? Could he let Ronan go, let him walk away? 

He thinks of all the things Ronan is to him, frustrating and infuriating and wonderful. He thinks of Ronan pushing him in an shopping cart, Ronan making a salve for his hands, Ronan kissing him under the branches of Cabeswater. He think of Ronan, shouting at him until they are both red in the face and Adam never wants to see him again, of Ronan with his sharp remarks that sometimes cut too deep. Ronan is not perfect, he never has been. He drives Adam up the wall, makes him want to hide in St. Agnes and never come out. And Adam could never give him up willingly. 

Maybe it’s selfish of him. Maybe Ronan would be happier without him. But Adam has always been selfish. And if there is even a chance that he can make Ronan happy, that Ronan can make him happy, Adam can’t let it go.

“I would tell you to fuck off,” Adam says honestly. “Because it’s none of your goddamn business.” 

Parrish laughs, and the look he gives Adam is approving. 

“Good. Keep that.”

“You’re insane,” Adam says. 

Parrish just shrugs. “If you were willing to give him up that easily, then I would probably have to kill you.”

Adam laughs nervously, because there is a danger in the way that Parrish is looking at him, and he isn’t sure that it is a joke. 

“There is so much I want to tell you,” Parrish says, and his eyes are hard in a way that is almost frightening. “I want to warn about every mistake you’ll make, every way that you’re going to fuck it up, and hurt you both.” Adam feels sick. “I want to stop you from hurting him, and I want to stop him from hurting you. And there are hundreds, thousands of thing that have nothing to do with you—I keep thinking we could change them—you and me.”

Adam just stares at him, uncertain. 

“But, who am I, to rewrite the past? To fuck with a timeline that didn’t even turn out that bad, all things considered. There I things I want to change, God, so badly. But in the end,” Parrish swallows, “somehow, despite everything—we’re here. And I’m happy. I never really thought I would be, you know?”

Adam feels the breath catch in his throat. Happy has never been the plan. Well-off. Respected. Admired. Content. But not happy. Even seeing the future with Ronan, the comfortable home they had built together, but not happy.

"I don't know why he chooses me,” he admits, because it is clear that Parrish considers Ronan to be a key part of that happiness, and Adam just can’t—he doesn't— “I just, I don’t understand.”

"God," Parrish groans, and he leans back on his hands. "You're just so stupid!"

Adam wants to protest, but honestly. He can’t find it in himself to disagree. He shrugs instead, digging his fingers into the grass. It stretches under him, growing up around his fingers, twining around his palms. There is a nervous energy to it, an anxiousness that mirrors Adam’s own.

“Look,” Parrish says. “It’s not a matter of choosing, or being chosen. He didn’t pick you out of a line-up of potential suitors, just like you didn’t choose him. Just like I didn’t choose him from a catalogue of potential husbands. It’s something wild and unpredictable. That’s kind of the point of love.”

Love. The word is like a thorn, and Adam flinches away from it. And Adam should really know better by now, because the second that he has that though, the grass under his hands turns from soft grass to vicious thorns, and he yanks his hand away as it bites into his palm. 

Parrish just watches him, amused. Adam glares down at his hand, then at Parrish. 

“I’m not in love with him,” he says.

Parrish raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t say that you were,” he says. 

Adam gives him a filthy look. “Shut up,” he says. 

Parrish’s mouth quirks up into a tolerant smile. “Okay.”

Adam really wants to hit him. Is this how Ronan feels all the time? It’s exhausting. 

“Why did you marry him?” he asks, desperate curiosity overwhelming his irritation. 

Parrish looks surprised. “Because I am in love with him,” he says. “Even if you’re not. Because he makes me happy.”

It all sounds so simple, when he says it like that. Adam doesn’t understand. How can he just know that. How can he just be like that. Marriage seems to Adam to be a lot like his contract with Cabeswater. Permanently tying yourself to something else, something with wants and needs that wouldn’t always match your own. Giving up a part of yourself that you could never get back. 

“Yes, but how—”

Parrish gives him the most shit-eating, obnoxious grin that Adam has ever seen in his life. “You’ll understand when you’re older,” he says. 

Adam is truly, honestly floored with indignation. For a moment, he can only gape, speechless.

“Look alive, Adam,” Parrish says. “We’re waking up.”

Adam looks around, but he can’t see anything different about their clearing. “How,” he begins. 

“Years of experience,” Parrish says, and there is a lightness to his tone that Adam hasn’t heard before. Has he ever seen that kind of joy on his own face before? Has he ever even felt that kind of happiness? He’s not sure. “Smile. You’re going home.”

* * *

Adam Parrish-Lynch hates the feeling of waking up from a living dream. It’s something that he ought to be used to by now, years and years of Cabeswater and the Glens and Ronan pulling his subconscious around should have made it a familiar feeling.

But still, there is the disconnect where he expects to be waking up in one place, and finds himself in another. The moment when he expects the dream world to linger. Often, he expects to be waking up in forest or a clearing, and waking up in his own bed is always a surprise. 

This time, he blinks awake with the thought of his younger self still in his mind and the scent of Cabeswater in his nose. Except, that when he wakes up fully, he can still smell it. Cabeswater is nothing like the Glens, however superficial the appearance may be. Cabeswater is infinite and vast, cold where the Glens are warm. In the last ten years, he has never mistaken the two. And it’s been ten years of his own time line since he last smelled Cabeswater like this.

For a terrible, heartstopping moment, he is afraid that whatever magic Cabeswater had woven around him has failed. That he’ll be stuck in the past with the ghosts of a life he has outgrown.

He can still feel Ronan’s hand in his; he would know that presence anywhere, and it is stronger in Cabeswater. The awareness of the Greywaren is tied into Adam’s own recognition, and that touch is infinitely familiar. 

“Look who’s back,” Ronan says, and Adam knows that voice, would know it even in death. He opens his eyes. Looking down at him, face drawn with concern and lined with exhaustion but so wonderfully familiar, is his Ronan. His husband.

“Hey,” Adam says. 

Ronan’s face breaks into a breathtaking smile, and Adam can’t help but smile back. He never has been able to resist that look on Ronan’s face. “Hey.”

Adam is lying with his head mostly in Ronan’s lap, Ronan’s hand clenched tight in his. Adam is so used to Ronan being the one who gets himself senselessly injured that it’s strange to be in this angle of the familiar pose. 

“Is this blood?” Ronan asks, and his voice is tight. He traces the fingers of his free hand over Adam’s cheek, over the marks that the other Ronan had left behind. 

“I’m fine,” Adam says. Ronan gives him a skeptical look, and his hand brushes over Adam’s cheek bones. Adam catches his hand, and presses Ronan’s palm to his mouth. Ronan’s mouth falls open, and Adam has to bite back a grin. 

“Gross,” someone says from Adam’s left. He looks around, and Blue raises her eyebrows at him.

“Yes, we’re here too,” she says, indicating herself and Gansey. Gansey gives him a terribly dorky looking half wave, and Adam lives for the moments where he is less then put together. 

“Begone, witch,” Adam says. “We were having a moment.”

“Your basic human emotions disgust me,” Blue replies. 

“You’re going to hate this then,” Adam says, and he fists his hand in the collar of Ronan’s shirt and pulls him down for a kiss. 

It’s easy and familiar and delightful. It’s stupid for Adam to have missed him after only a few days—it’s everything he swore to himself that he would never be in a relationship. He’s been without Ronan longer than this—even since they got married. But it had been harder that his usual absence, being with a Ronan who wasn’t his husband. All the ways that Ronan had been similar only made him miss this Ronan more. 

Ronan kisses him back just as fiercely, and Adam wonders if it had been as hard for him. It had probably been even worse. Adam had been with a Ronan who had clearly still liked him, had been able to enjoy the way that Ronan still looked at him, even then. But this Ronan had been stuck with Adam at 18. Adam had not been his best at 18. 

Beside him, he can hear Blue and Gansey making exaggerated noises of disgust and he finally breaks off to glare at them. Ronan is gratifyingly flushed, but Adam is feeling a little winded himself, so he can’t tease him for it. 

“Gansey,” Adam greets, trying to play it off.

“Adam,” Gansey replies, and Adam can tell that Gansey is laughing at him. 

Finally, Adam looks past them. “Is this Cabeswater?” It can’t be. Cabeswater hasn’t been like this in years. The only part of their forest that had been saved was the small area where Aurora resided, and only that because Adam had warded it to within an inch of its his life as soon as he got back from the future. This is not Aurora’s haven. It’s Cabeswater proper, with the pond and the tree and the cool breeze carrying Latin to his deaf ear.

“Are we—did you guys get brought to the past as well?” That’s not it. He can feel the wellspring of Cabeswater inside of him. It’s been a painful ache for the last ten years, a persistent nausea that he could push away as long as he never came back here. Even being back in the past, in the healthy and vibrant Cabeswater had been more like a bandage, a superficial feeling at best. He hadn’t been tied to that Cabeswater, not like he was to this one. 

For a moment, he is terribly aware of Noah’s absence. The loss of Cabeswater had happened around the same time Noah started to truly disappear. It’s wrong, to be in Cabeswater without him. He misses him. Seeing him in the past had been wonderful, and terrible, and his loss is a fresh wound again.

“Adam fixed it,” Gansey says, and he sounds as proud as if he had done it himself. 

Adam pushes through the resistance of time and dream-thought that shaded over his old memories of his time in the future. He vaguely remembers being in Cabeswater, but he had been so drained, and it had happened so close to his return that the details were blurred. 

“Fixed it?” Adam had spent months here, fighting back sickness and driving himself almost to passing out to try and repair Cabeswater. It had been too damaged by the battle, by the vicious tears of the Third Sleeper and the loss of Glendower from the leyline. He hadn’t managed to do more than put out the fires and to stop the dark poison from spreading outside the forest itself. 

Blue crosses her legs. “I think he was still tied to his own Cabeswater. So he had this power and life inside him.” Her mouth quirks. “Whereas you are just dead inside.”

Adam flips her off and Ronan laughs. 

Adam looks back up at him. Had he forgotten how Ronan looked in only three days? It’s like looking at him for the first time, the razor sharp jut of his cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw, the blue of his eyes. Even the tattoos that wrap around Ronan’s shoulders seem new, where he had gotten used to pale skin there instead.

Adam follows the muscles in Ronan’s arm, tracing the curl of ink and the swell of bicep with his eyes. “What is this?” He sits up regretfully, pulling himself out of Ronan’s hold so that he can get a better look at the bandages. 

Ronan rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing.” And, when Adam reaches out to take his arm, “Seriously, don’t be a drama queen.”

The bandage is terribly wrapped, disgracefully so. It’s already coming loose at the top, and the layers aren’t crossed enough to provide any sort of pressure. “This is terrible. Did Adam do this?”

“Well, he was 18 and didn’t have six years of medical school to fall back on, so I think you’ll have to cut him a break.”

“How did this even happen?” He unwraps the bandage carefully, letting it pool to the ground. Ronan’s arms are cut up, not bleeding but only barely. “Were you attacked?”

Ronan snorts. “Yes, it was terrifying,” he drawls, sarcastic. “I barely survived.”

“Did you even clean this?”

“Adam did. With Neosporin.” Ronan spits the word like someone else might say poison.

Adam smiles at him. “I think I can do better than that.” Which is worse, wanting to show up a teenager or wanting to show up his past self. He’s sure there is something in there that any therapist would have a field day with. Slowly, feeling the power of green and living things flowing through him, he runs cool fingers over Ronan’s arm. He thinks of the soothing properties of aloe, the anesthetic properties of kava, the cleansing properties of summer savory, and lets it run through him. He thinks of Ronan’s skin knitting together like climbing vines, with all the resilient energy of kudzu. 

It’s easier with this Ronan, who is so attuned to him, and these wounds are nothing compared to what the younger Ronan had suffered. When Adam pulls back, Ronan’s arms are almost completely healed, and Ronan is watching him with indulgent amusement. 

“It wouldn’t have killed me,” Ronan says reprovingly. 

“No need to take any chances,” Adam says primly. 

Blue clears her throat pointedly, and Adam looks over at her. 

“Yep, still here,” she drawls. “Shocking.”

“You know, I keep hoping you’ll have just left,” Adam responds. Blue just rolls her eyes and moves closer to him, nudging him with her toes.

“So, how was the past?” Blue asks. “How adorable was I?”

“You were a brat,” Adam replies. “You were all brats.”

Gansey makes an affronted noise. “I was a perfect gentleman at 18,” he begins, and is cut off by Blue’s laughter.

“Gansey,” Adam says in exasperation. “You argued with me about getting a magic sword.”

“It was the wrong mythology!” Gansey replies, as though he hadn’t used it to save all their lives. As though he hadn’t trained to use it for years after the battle. As if he didn’t keep it in a place of honor in his house.

“It was a magic sword!” Blue says, exasperated. “You always take the magic sword.”

Gansey crosses his arms. “I did take it.”

“Without complaint, Gansey,” Blue says, throwing her hands up. “That goes without saying!”

Gansey tilts his head up, playing up the Richard Gansey persona to its fullest. “I was utterly justified.” 

“I hope you never get a fairy godmother,” Blue says, leaning into his side. “She’d give you a dress and a coach to the ball, and you’d ask if she had any Camaros and then tell her that Cinderella mythology only referred to woman in servant positions and really, she should find someone who more traditionally adhered to the original story.”

“I wouldn’t be as bad as Adam,” Gansey says, trying to hide his laugh. “’Begone, fairy godmother, I don’t want your magical charity!’”

“‘Fuck off, I can get to the ball on my own!’” Ronan adds. 

Adam rolls his eyes. “I hate you all right now.”

“‘I don’t want to marry a prince,’” Blue says, “‘I want to make my own way in the world.’”

“Wrong!” Adam protests, laughing. “Obviously, I would tell her that I don’t want to marry the prince because I am already happily married.”

“Damn straight,” Ronan growls, playing along.

“So to speak,” Blue says. 

Adam gives her a flat look. “Hilarious.”

Blue bats her eyelashes at him. 

“No prince can have him,” Ronan says, and leans over to kiss him, a playful thing, just to tease. But it’s—God, Adam missed this. He turns his head into what would have been just an innocent peck, and lets it go deeper than Ronan intended. When Ronan had woken up, screaming, wounds appearing on his body from nowhere, Adam had been so, so scared. He had known better, known that his husband was waiting for him—but there had been a part of him that was afraid he would never have this again.

When Adam pulls back, he takes a moment just to look at Ronan’s face, the delicate sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks, the paleness of his face. A hundred tiny details that makes Ronan so familiar to him. 

He still has Ronan’s hands in his own. He runs his fingers again over the healing scratches, pink marks crisscrossing old scars. He knows it’s stupid, but he can’t help reaching out to the hem of Ronan’s shirt, tugging it up and checking on his stomach. The skin is marked with silvery scars, but it’s whole and solid, warm under his hand. He traces the worst mark carefully, the one that had been bleeding into his hands just minutes ago.

Ronan shivers. 

“Do you want us to give you two a moment?” Blue asks. 

Adam looks up, realizing how this must look. He has Ronan’s shirt hiked up, running delicate fingers over his stomach, treacherously close to the waistband of Ronan’s jeans. Yes, Adam thinks, even though he knows that she is only joking. Yes, go away. He glances at Ronan, wanting to make sure that he hasn’t made him uncomfortable—he doesn't usually feel Ronan up in front of their friends. 

The look on Ronan’s face makes him swallow. Ronan’s pupils are blown, his mouth open. There is flush rising on his pale cheeks-- the way he looks at Adam. God, Adam will never get tired of it. 

Gansey coughs. “Ah, Jane. Why don’t we go see how much of Cabeswater is repaired.”

“No, I’m good,” Blue says. Adam can see her in his peripheral vision, leaning back on her hands, watching them. He doesn’t want to look away from Ronan though. He _wants_. There was something so heady about the way that Ronan had looked at him back then, undercut by the fact that Ronan had been a teenager, and had only really wanted the past Adam. But now, seeing that same look on his Ronan, on his husband. The idea that Ronan has wanted him like this for over ten years. God, it’s intoxicating.

“Alright, up you get,” Gansey pulls Blue up and drags her out of the clearing. “You owe me for this,” he calls over his shoulder. 

Adam lets his head fall onto Ronan’s shoulder and laughs. “Those two.”

“Fuck them,” Ronan says. He pulls Adam to him, and Adam goes willingly. 

He had thought for so long that Ronan only wanted this from him, lust and passion and heady kisses on the ground of Cabeswater. But Adam had looked at Ronan through the eyes of an adult, had seen his husband in Ronan’s wanting expression, and God, that Ronan had looked at him like that for so long. 

He straddles Ronan easily, one knee on either side of Ronan’s lap. Ronan has to lean up to match him at this height, and Adam should feel bad about making Ronan chase after his mouth but Ronan does. He always does. 

Abruptly, Adam is tired of teasing, tired of making Ronan come to him. (And God, if that isn’t a metaphor for their entire relationship, and Adam is so sick of himself that it hurts.)

He stops teasing, stops holding himself back, and leans in. His hand is on the warm stretch of skin of Ronan’s stomach. He uses the other to pull Ronan’s hair, pulling Ronan’s head back, just enough that he can press kisses into Ronan’s mouth. Ronan groans, arching to meet him. They’re pressed together, hip to shoulder, and Ronan is alive and warm and _his_.

Then Adam brings his hands to Ronan’s shoulders and pushes. Ronan makes a bemused noise, but goes willingly, following Adam’s hands until his head is pressed to the mossy ground. Adam can feel Cabeswater all around him, a living breathing thing. He can sense it rearranging, adding spring to the grass, softness to the moss. Making a more comfortable place for Ronan to lie. In this, they are united—make the Greywaren happy.

For a moment, they just stare at one another. Ronan’s eyes are dark and intent, and Adam wants to soak him in. He feels like he will never get enough of him. Maybe it is selfish, but it’s a selfishness he shares with Ronan, one that they both delight in indulging. 

“I missed you,” Adam says. 

Ronan smiles, and there are no sharp edges to it. “You too.”

He takes Adam’s hand and draws it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the wrist. Adam sucks in a breath. Then Ronan smirks at him, all the sharp edges that Adam never wants him to lose coming through, and scrapes his teeth across the tender skin. 

“Fuck,” Adam breathes. How is it that he never gets tired of this, of having Ronan under him, alive and wanting. 

“That’s the idea,” Ronan drawls. He reaches up and mirrors Adam’s move from earlier, tugging at the neck of Adam’s shirt until Adam leans down enough to kiss him. 

And, well, it just seems easier to stretch out on top of him, letting Ronan bear his weight, their legs tangled together, chest and hips flush. 

Ronan is already hard, and he groans when Adam slides a leg between his, letting Ronan grind up against him. Every time Ronan shifts, the line of Adam’s cock presses against the jut of Ronan’s hips. It’s delicious friction and it’s not enough and Adam wants more. He has to bite his lip to stop his own noises from escaping. 

“Stop that,” Ronan growls, pressing his thumb to Adam’s mouth, nudging Adam’s lip from between his teeth. “Let me hear you.”

Adam opens his mouth enough to let Ronan’s thumb slide in, enjoying the way that Ronan’s eyes go wide, the way that his face flushes. 

“Tease,” Ronan says, the word coming out tense around a moan. Adam closes his eyes and sucks, running his tongue over the pad of Ronan’s thumb, following it with his teeth. Ronan groans properly this time, the sound shuddering through him. Adam wants him to make that sound forever. 

Then Adam’s stomach lurches as Ronan plants his feet on the ground and thrusts, dislodging Adam enough that Ronan’s hand slides free of his mouth. Ronan smiles at him, and Adam has just a second to brace before Ronan rolls them over. 

“Hey,” Ronan says, looking down at Adam from between his hands, his arms locked to hold himself up. 

“Hey,” Adam replies, feeling soft and hazy with affection. 

Then Ronan thrusts against him, slow and deliberate, and all affection melts under the gut punch of arousal. Their hips are perfectly aligned, their cocks press together with every filthy roll of Ronan’s hips. Adam tosses his head back as he moans, his own hips jerking up to meet Ronan’s.

“Hm, that’s better,” Ronan says, and bends to press a kiss to Adam’s mouth, his jaw, his neck. 

“Ronan,” Adam groans, fisting a hand in Ronan’s hair to hold him in place. He can feel Ronan grin against his skin, just before Ronan bites down. Adam arches up with a shout. 

“Like that?” Ronan asks, the arrogant bastard. 

“Yes.” Adam tilts his head back, giving Ronan easier access, and he whines when Ronan pulls back, settling back on Adam’s thighs. 

“Say please,” Ronan says, smug.

“Fuck you,” Adam replies, saccharine sweet. 

“Please,” Ronan repeats. 

Then Adam grins, and he enjoys watching Ronan’s eyes widen. “Since you asked so nicely,” he says. Ronan has left his arms free, so Adam fits his hands to the sharp edge of Ronan’s hips and flips him over, feeling the whoosh of delight in his stomach when Ronan only laughs and lets himself be flipped. 

It feels like a compulsion, the way that he goes back to Ronan’s stomach, using both hands to push Ronan’s shirt up out of the way. He lets Ronan sit up enough to take it off completely before pushing him back down. He traces each of the scars there carefully. For a moment there, Ronan had been so pale and so still. 

Adam leans down and kisses the highest scar, just where a dark trail of hair begin. Ronan makes a low, gasping noise, and Adam sees his fists clench at his side. He runs his hand over one fist, waiting until Ronan loosens his grip. Then he kisses the next scar down, and runs his lips over the length of it. Ronan’s skin is soft, broken only by the crinkle of hair. 

When Adam sucks a mark into the final, lowest scar, Ronan groans, and his hips jerk up. Adam presses them back down, and applies himself to the scar in earnest, tracing it with lips and tongue until Ronan is squirming under him continuously, fighting Adam’s hold on him. Ronan hates his scars, but Adam loves them. They are proof of all the things that Ronan has survived. 

Ronan’s hands clench and unclench in the ground by his hips, digging furrows into the grass. Adam grins against his skin and drags his teeth along the trail of hair, all the way to the waist of Ronan’s pants. Ronan keens, a high, desperate sound, and Adam feels his toes curl inside his stolen sneakers. 

“Get on with it,” Ronan says, and Adam bites him, hard. “Please,” Ronan gasps, his voice cracking straight down the middle. Adam looks up to watch the way that Ronan tosses his head. “Please.”

Adam doesn’t want to tease. He wants Ronan to know how stupidly in love with him Adam is, even when Ronan himself doesn’t believe it. He wants to take Ronan apart with lips and teeth and hands and body and put him back together, stronger. 

He unbuttons Ronan’s pants with a practiced move, sliding them down his legs with his boxers and off, tossing them both carelessly behind him. God. Ronan’s cock is flushed dark with blood and rises sharply over his stomach and Adam wants. 

Ronan is already dripping precome, and Adam leans down to press a wet kiss to the head, tongue flicking out to catch the drops. 

“Wait,” Ronan cries. “Adam!” He gasps for air, chest heaving. “God, wait.”

“What?” Adam snarls, because he is _busy_. 

Ronan smiles at him, already looking perfectly wrecked, and runs a hand through Adam’s hair. It’s a delicate, tender move and Adam feels a little broken in it’s wake. “I think you’re a bit overdressed for the occasion.”

Adam gives his own clothes a disgusted look. He doesn’t care about that. He wants this, needs this, to be about Ronan. He keeps hearing the way past Ronan had asked ‘what do you want from me,’ and he can’t shake the feeling that he has never given him an answer.

He ignores Ronan, leaning forward to lick a long stripe up Ronan’s cock, feeling it hot beneath his tongue.

Ronan’s hand tightens in his hair and Adam has to swallow a desperate noise. “No,” Ronan says, sliding his other hand up Adam’s hip, under his shirt. “Off.” 

He still has a firm grip on Adam’s hair, and it makes Adam feel claimed. Owned. Even just three years ago, Adam would have balked at the very thought, but now it just riles him up, makes him more desperate. He shivers under Ronan’s touch, feeling the calluses on Ronan’s hand as it slides up his chest, rough against his skin. He is painfully hard in his jeans, but taking them off would mean moving, and he has Ronan just where he wants him.

But then, Ronan knows him so well. He tightens his hand in Adam’s hair, tugging just hard enough that Adam’s eyes water. His other hand he slides down Adam’s chest in one long, torturous drag, pressing the bulge in Adam’s pants and grinding down with the heel of his hand. Adam moans, and his whole body curls forward until he catches himself with one hand on the ground. For a moment, he is paralyzed as Ronan’s hand moves, shudders of pleasure wracking through him as he gasps and moans. 

Ronan undoes the button on Adam’s jeans, enough that he can get his hand inside and Adam curses. 

Ronan’s hand is hot and perfect on his cock, and god, Adam can hardly think as Ronan tilts his head up enough to catch Adam’s mouth in his. Adam drops his own hand to curl tight around Ronan’s dick, loving the way that it fills his hand, the way that Ronan shudders and moans against him.

For a moment, they gasp into one another’s mouths, desperate and uncoordinated as teenagers. Then Adam pulls back with an anguished sound.

“Fine.” He yanks the shirt off and tosses it behind him as well. “Fine!” Getting his pants off is almost painfully awkward, and he has to stop half way through to take off his shoes and pretend like Ronan isn’t laughing at him, but he manages. And finally, finally they are both naked.

“Well,” Ronan says, rising up on one elbow to give Adam an absolutely filthy look. “Now what?”

Adam rolls his eyes, feeling so full of affection he might die. 

“Now,” he says, stretching out beside Ronan’s hips. “I am going to suck you off.” He continues over Ronan’s groan. “And then I am going to fuck you until all you can remember is my name."

“Big promises,” Ronan taunts, as if he can hide the way that his cock jerks, the way his voice has gone hoarse, the way his face is flushed red all the way down his neck.

Adam doesn’t bother to reply, just leans down and licks a stripe up Ronan’s cock, loving the way Ronan chokes on his own words, gasping as they come out as moans. He loves Ronan like this, coming apart under his mouth and hand. Loves how in this moments, Ronan is utterly his. 

They’ve done this before, hundreds of times, and it never gets old, never gets tired. Adam knows the spot just under the head to press his lips, and Ronan cries out. Adam pushes Ronan’s hips to the ground and swallows him down, feeling Ronan fill his mouth and loving it. Ronan lifts one hand to cup Adam’s face, then runs his thumb along the line of his own cock, pressed against Adam’s cheek, and his moan is unsteady and gasping. 

“Adam,” Ronan says, and his head is tilted back, his eyes closed, the flush running all the way down his chest. “Adam, please.”

This too is familiar. Adam presses his hands to the ground and he barely has words to form what he wants from Cabeswater, so he just pushes out with his desire. Ronan shouts, because, God, Adam forgot the effect that Cabeswater sometimes had on them both, how it can carry strong feelings between them. He pushes again, this time with deliberate intent, with all his love and his want and everything he has and Ronan gasps and shakes and comes in Adam’s mouth. 

Adam is so surprised that he doesn’t swallow in time, feels it spill over his lips. 

“God,” Ronan gasps, and pulls him up to kiss him, dirty and wet. Adam can taste Ronan’s come in the kiss, know that Ronan can as well, and he doesn’t care at all. 

“I was going to fuck you,” he says when they break apart. It’s almost worth it though, to see the way that Ronan lies, languid and satisfied on the mossy ground. 

Ronan stretches, smug in a way that says he is enjoying the way Adam watches the long, pale line of his body, the way the muscles of his arms are pulled tight. “You still can.”

Adam frowns down at him. “You already—”

“Can’t you feel it?” Ronan asks, and god, he’s already getting hard again. He writhes against the ground. “I can still feel you. I can feel,” he groans, and the sound goes straight through Adam, “everything.”

Adam kisses him, because he can’t not. He can feel it. Cabeswater is humming around them, and he is pretty sure that some of it is the new energy of rebirth, all the power that his younger self poured into it. But the rest of it is just them, the Magician and the Greywaren, the two of them so closely tied to Cabeswater that the air feels heavy with their emotions. 

“Come on, magic boy,” Ronan says, hooking one leg around Adam’s waist to pull him closer. “Fuck me.”

And, well, Adam has never been good at turning away from Ronan’s challenges. 

He rests his hand on the spot where he had pushed all of his want from earlier, and his fingers come up slick, a small stone basin formed in the ground itself and filled with something that functions like lube. He had gotten it tested, once, and trying to get Gansey to send it to a lab had been one of the most mortifying experiences of his life. No one had been able to tell them what it was, exactly, except that it was organic and it wouldn’t hurt them.

It always smells like moss and growing things. Sometimes Adam wonders if it has aphrodisiac qualities, because even the smell of it is intoxicating. It’s the product of all the want and desire that he poured into Cabeswater, the manifestation of how much he wants Ronan. 

Adam slicks up his hand, and kisses Ronan again, warm and wet and pleased. Ronan is the one who turns it dirty, licking his way into Adam’s mouth, biting at his lip. His cock nudges at Adam’s hip, and Ronan thrusts against the bare skin there, slow and languid in his desire.

“Eager?” Adam teases.

In retaliation, Ronan reaches down to palm Adam’s cock, hand sliding slowly over its length and twisting up on the upstroke, just like how he knows Adam likes. Adam moans, eyes slamming closed as he jerks into Ronan’s hand. He is abruptly aware that of the two of them, he was the one who hasn’t come yet. 

“What were you saying?” Ronan asks. The smug tone in his voice should not be so sexy and yet. There is something about the way his mouth curls, the way his eyes glint—Adam wants to fuck it out of him, until Ronan can’t form words. Adam reaches down and slides two slick fingers into Ronan without preamble.

Ronan’s smirk drops away as his mouth goes slack with pleasure. It’s exhilarating, taking Ronan apart like this. Adam pumps his fingers inside, watching as Ronan twists his head back and forth, his chest arching up. He howls when Adam presses a finger to his prostate, his entire body shaking with pleasure.

“Adam,” Ronan says, it comes out in a long moan. “Adam. Fucking—do it.” He can’t keep his voice steady, can barely get with words out around the noises forcing themselves out of his throat and Adam doesn’t know if it is possible to die from wanting someone so badly. There is something in the way that Ronan says his name, it has always driven him crazy. He loves knowing that Ronan is here for him, that it is him that Ronan wants to badly. Ronan knows it. Ronan exploits it viciously, tilting his head back to expose the delicate line of his throat and moaning Adam’s name like he doesn’t know how to say anything else. 

He can’t get his mouth to form around anything that isn’t a moan or a whimper, so he just presses in another finger. 

“Fuck!” Ronan shouts, his whole body shaking. Adam curls his fingers, waiting until Ronan shouts again, then stretching them apart.

Please,” Ronan says. “Please, Adam.”

And God, Adam has never been able to resist Ronan when he begs. Adam slides his hand out of Ronan, and Ronan makes another low desperate sound. 

Adam reaches down to slick himself up clumsily, only barely manages to resist thrusting into his own hand. 

“Ready?” he asks, lining himself up and watching Ronan carefully. He doesn’t push in, just teases around the edge of Ronan’s hole, wanting Ronan to ask for it. 

Ronan makes an anguished, frustrated noise and lurches up. He gets his shoulder into the center of Adam’s chest, taking him utterly by surprise, and the momentum takes them all the way back to the ground. Adam stares up at Ronan, startled. 

“What?” 

“You were taking too damn long,” Ronan snarls, and thrusts himself down on Adam’s cock. 

Adam feels the tattered remains of his self-control shatter, and he cries out, thrusting up to meet him. “Ronan,” he gasps out. “Ronan.”

Ronan throws his head back, lifts himself up and then back down, groaning. Adam isn’t the only one who likes to hear his name.

Adam’s hands go to his hips, steadying him. How could he have ever thought that he didn’t want this. How could he ever have been willing to give this up.

Ronan falls forward, supporting his weight with arms on either side of Adam. “Whatever you’re thinking,” he says. “Stop it.”

He clenches around Adam, hard, and Adam sees stars. He can hear himself whimper, knows that he must sound desperate and he can’t help it. Ronan’s stomach flexes as he rolls his hip. At this angle, he can’t fuck Adam as thoroughly, but Adam considers it a fair trade-off for the way it puts Ronan’s mouth in easy access. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

Ronan stares down at him, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “Liar.”

Adam bucks his hips, hoping to distract him, but Ronan knows him better than that. He rolls down into it, and they both moan, but Ronan’s gaze is steady. 

“You think that it’s not fair,” Ronan says, and his hips never stop moving. “You think that you’ve been a terrible boyfriend, a terrible husband.”

Adam looks away, feeling shame coil in his stomach. Ronan lifts his hand and turns Adam’s face back to his, kissing him with so much passion and love that Adam wants to scream. 

“You think that it’s not right, that I loved you for so long, and you didn’t love me as much.”

“Please don’t,” Adam says.

Ronan is slowing down, and it’s a terrible paradox. Adam wants to move, needs to move. But there is something of a predator in Ronan’s sharp gaze, and every instinct tells Adam to stay still. 

“I used to think so too.” 

“Ronan—” 

“Shut up. I’m talking now. I didn’t care that much, because I knew that you love me, and I knew you wouldn’t have married me for anything else. But it still crossed my mind, how unfair it was. And you know what?”

Ronan’s hips start moving again, tantalizing circles, and Adam doesn’t know how to react. He is still so hard, so wanting, and his body is flushed with confusion and arousal. “What?” he asks. He’s not sure he wants to know, but Ronan wants him to ask.

“I was wrong.” 

Adam jerks in pure surprise, and Ronan groans. Then Ronan reaches down and wraps a hand around his own cock, and Adam can’t look away. “Wrong about what?” he asks, watching the movement of Ronan’s hand. Ronan’s dick is flushed dark red, and Ronan’s pale hand is a delicious contrast. He knows that Ronan is teasing him, giving him so much to look at, trying to rile him up. Adam doesn’t care.

“I met you, past you. And you loved me, even then. You just didn’t know it yet.”

Adam’s gaze flies to Ronan’s face, and he feels pinned opened and exposed and wild. “What.”

Ronan grins, and it’s sharp and pleased and so very satisfied. “I know that look on your face by now, Adam. And he loved me. And maybe it will take him another ten years, maybe it will take him until this moment to figure it out, but he loved me the whole time.” 

Adam surges up, knocks Ronan’s hand away, practically throwing Ronan onto his back. He slides out of Ronan and he doesn’t care. He grips Ronan’s hands in his, lacing their fingers together and pinning Ronan’s hands to the ground. “Ronan,” he says, drawing it out, watching Ronan shudder. He thrust back in, hard enough that Ronan’s whole back arches, a perfect curve. Adam shoves him back down, leaning over so that his mouth is just over Ronan’s their faces close together. He doesn’t move, his hips still, his cock throbbing inside Ronan. 

For a moment, Ronan just stares at him, eyes wide and startled. He clenches around Adam, trying to goad him into movement, and Adam pulls his self control around and resists. He needs Ronan to pay attention.

“I love you,” he says, breathing it into Ronan’s mouth. He’s not sure what he expects—not surprise. He’s said it before, said it often, but he expects something, some kind of reaction. Ronan just smiles at him. 

“I know,” Ronan says.

And God, he doesn’t know why that’s sexy, but it is. He tries to keep ahold of his control, but he can feel it slipping around him. He pulls back and thrusts into Ronan, watching as he keens. 

“Adam,” Ronan moans, playing him, and Adam can’t help but give in. He keeps a tight hold on Ronan’s hands, their fingers laced tight, but he can’t hold Ronan’s hips still as well. He doesn’t think he wants to. Ronan meets every thrust, the two of them falling into a rhythm.

“Ronan,” Adam says, loving the way it makes Ronan shudder against him. When he leans down. Ronan’s cock presses tight against his stomach. Ronan moans, and Adam can feel his desperation through the ground, through the very air. It ricochets back and forth between them, love and need and want. Adam pushes it back, all his love for Ronan. 

Ronan leans up to kiss him, and comes, muffling a cry into Adam’s mouth

Adam pulls away to watch him, feels him coming apart, feels Ronan’s love echoed back at him. He can feel his carefully prized control edging away from him. He doesn’t try and keep ahold of it. It’s Ronan. Ronan, who knows every part of him, and loves him anyway. Ronan, who doesn’t care when Adam is out of control, when he isn’t perfect. He feels Ronan around him, feels his love, the safety of his affection. Adam gasps, shudders and—lets go. 

* * *

Adam Parrish is getting way too used to waking up in unexpected places. He doesn’t even blink to feel grass under his palms, tickling where his shirt rides up from the back of his borrowed pants. 

“Hey.” Adam feels someone tap on his cheek. “Wake up.”

The air smells like moss and cool and that unnameable familiar scent that had permeated the Glens. Adam bats at the hand, wanting just another few minutes. He is so tired. 

“Wake up.” The tap on his face returns, this time hitting on his cheek bone. 

“Fuck off, Ronan,” Adam mutters. “I’m sleeping.”

There is silence above him, the tapping stops. Then a hand settles gently on his hair. Ronan, Adam is sure that this is Ronan, can feel it as a humming awareness in his bones, in the very air, just lets his hand sit there, still and unmoving. 

Adam nudges into it ever so slightly. There is another long pause, and Adam is just too tired to care. Then, slowly, the fingers start to comb through his hair, smoothing it away from his face. 

The air is warm and the touch is so gentle that Adam feels his already tentative hold on consciousness slipping. It seems easier to just let Ronan take care of him.

He hears muttered whispers, almost indistinguishable from the sound of wind in the leaves, and then the unmistakable click of a fake camera shutter. 

“Dammit, Gansey,” Ronan hisses as Gansey swears. 

“Blue made me.”

"You woke him up," Noah says accusingly. 

Adam turns his face away from the light and the noise, and feels rough denim against his cheek. 

His eyes shoot open. He is lying with his head on Ronan’s thigh, and Ronan is running careful fingers through his hair.

Adam shouts and jerks away. 

Blue bursts into laughter and Noah buries his head in her shoulder, snickering. Gansey tries and fails to hide a smile behind his hand. Ronan just raises an eyebrow at him, and Adam can’t read him at all.

“Welcome back, sleeping beauty,” Ronan drawls. He looks amused, but there is something distant behind his eyes. Adam, who has gotten so used to the way that Ronan looks at him in the future, feels anxiousness form a hard knot in his stomach. 

“I,” he hesitates. Was it even real? Has he been in Cabeswater this entire time? “Had a dream,” he finishes lamely.

Blue grins at him, and points at Gansey sarcastically, “And you were there, and I was there,” when her finger comes to rest on Ronan, her grin widens. “And you were definitely there.”

Adam feels his face flame. Blue gives him a smug look. “So, Adam,” she says, teasing. “You and Ronan, huh?”

Adam wants to protest, wants to deny it, for no other reason that his face feels hot and he’s embarrassed and he wants to be out of here. But then he catches sight of Ronan’s face, drawn tight and utterly closed off. 

“That’s what I hear,” he says instead, and Ronan’s eyes jerk to meet his. Adam smiles. The pleased, embarrassed look that crosses Ronan’s face is probably the best thing he’s ever seen. 

“How was the future?” Gansey asks. Adam would have liked to stay in the quiet moment with Ronan, and usually Gansey can read a situation better than that, but one look at Gansey’s face shows that they aren’t dealing with polite, mannered Gansey. Gansey’s eyes are shining, the bright light of discovery in his face. It’s his Glendower face. “Did we wake Glendower?”

Adam looks at Gansey, and it’s like being back in the future Cabeswater, the peculiar double vision. Gansey is young and bright and whole, but Adam can see the shadow of scars in his face, burn marks that stretched over skin that is currently unharmed and healthy. Gansey, who had lived again when he should have died. Adam can’t do anything that would take that future from him. From any of them.

He shrugs his shoulders, forcing a nonchalance that he doesn’t feel. “They wouldn’t tell me much.” They had probably told him more than he should have known, but that just means that it’s his job to keep it from the others. 

Gansey looks crestfallen. “Your future self was not particularly forthcoming either,” he says. 

Adam wonders just how much his future self had said. Had he told them about Cabeswater, the burned out ruin it had become? Had he told them about Noah, fading away to nonexistence? Had he told them about the Third Sleeper, or the fact that Gansey and Blue were married? He had clearly told them about Adam and Ronan. 

Adam mentally sends a sarcastic thank you to Parrish, because he still isn’t sure he is ready to deal with that fall out.

Instead, he turns and pulls Noah into a hug. It's freezing, and only half-substantial, and he has to be careful not to squeeze too hard in case he goes straight through him. It's only saved from being a terrible hug because Noah is a truly amazing hugger. Adam is not a big fan of hugs, and even he gets that. 

Noah pats him carefully on the back, and when Adam pulls away, there is something sad and knowing in Noah's face. Noah, at least, understands what his future holds. 

Then, still feeling tremulous with emotion, he reaches to Gansey, because he can’t stop seeing Gansey, burnt and broken. Gansey, dead because Adam had given too much away, and pulls him into a hug. It’s not a brief, manly hug, Gansey has never excelled at those. Adam tucks his head into the curve of Gansey’s neck and feels Gansey’s arms come up around him. It’s awkward, with Adam half kneeling there, and Gansey not moving from his sitting position, but good.

Then Adam pulls back and sees why Gasney had held himself so still. “Is that a sword?” he asks, incredulous. 

It is a sword. Broad and silver, with a blue wire-wrapped handle and a raven head carved into the pommel, wings spreading into the crossguard, looking incongruous against the ordinary fabric of Gansey’s khakis. There is something inherently wrong about a man in khakis with a sword. 

Gansey looks down at it proudly. “Isn’t it cool?” he says. “Not thematically appropriate, of course but—" Blue groans, and Gansey closes his mouth, looking abashed. “It’s very cool,” he says again, and falls quiet.

Adam looks to Ronan. “The dream monster,” he says slowly. “Did it,” he trails off, not sure how to finish the sentence. Ronan holds his gaze for a long moment, and the knowledge that they had both truly been there in that dream space, and all they had done, passes between them. Then Ronan jerks a thumb over his shoulder. Adam follows the motion and sees the singed and cut up body of the monster from his dream. 

“It was real,” he says. He had known it, but there is a difference between feeling something and seeing it before you. 

Ronan’s gaze is hesitant. “Yes.”

Unbidden, Adam’s eyes fall to Ronan’s stomach, where he had been so badly hurt. Ronan’s shirt covers it. Is that blood? Adam can’t tell, the shirt is too dark for it to show properly. Ronan is up, moving, alive. Adam doesn't need to see it. He tears his eyes away, looking back at the monster. “We should bury it,” he says. They could bury it by the other one.

Ronan makes a noise, low in his throat. It’s not enough of anything to call a laugh, but it’s dark and bitter. “Wonderful. Another body for me to bury.”

Adam’s eyes go back to Ronan’s stomach. They had buried the other monster together, but Ronan had to bury his own corpse alone. A body that had been cut up in the same way that this Ronan had been cut up. He had left Ronan alone for that. Adam reaches out, and pulls his hands back. He hopes that no one had noticed the gesture, and he pulls his eyes away. He meets Blue’s eyes almost by accident. She looks between him and Ronan, her expression speculative. 

“I think there are still shovels in the trunk,” Blue says. Adam doubts that. There is barely room for the trunk in the trunk of the Pig. “Why don’t we take care of it.”

Adam opens his mouth, to protest, he thinks. He isn’t sure what his intention is. Then Blue gives him a murderous look, and Adam falls quiet. Right.

“But—” Gansey says, and Blue punches him in the arm. “Ah, yes. Right.” 

Gansey stands first, offering a hand down to Blue. She ignores it, pulling herself up with a pointed look at Adam. 

Blue and Gansey pick the monster up together, both of them grimacing at the blood that gets on their hands, their clothes. Noah follows, hovering nervously, unable to bear any of the weight but still wanting to help. Adam watches them go. 

“Those two,” he says, shaking his head with fond amusement. 

* * *

Ronan watches them go, scowling. “They shouldn’t have to do that alone.” 

It’s his mess, his danger. His responsibility. 

Adam is still staring after them, his face unreadable. Ronan feels jolted by the thought that in the brief time that Adam has been away, he has become a stranger. He looks young, in the wake of an Adam that was older, and Ronan doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“Let them go,” Adam says slowly. “I think that if I try to go after them, Blue will actually stab me.”

“Barbeque,” Ronan corrects absently.

“What?”

“Blue would barbeque you. With her,” he waves his hand, meaning to indicate magic, and Adam just cocks his head. Has it only been three days, since Blue learned that. “Parrish taught her how to cook people.” 

“Parrish-Lynch,” Adam says absently. 

Ronan feels his spine go stiff, feels every muscle tense. He hadn’t thought that Adam would be the first one to mention the relationship they had in the future. He doesn’t know what to say now that he has. 

“That’s it?” he demands. “Nothing on the cooking people thing?”

Adam looks at him, drops his gaze to Ronan’s stomach, then away again, quick as blinking. “That was only a matter of time, with Blue.”

Ronan snorts, because he can’t entirely disagree. “So, Parrish-Lynch, huh?” he asks. “He never mentioned that part.”

Adam jolts in a gratifying manner, his eyes flying to Ronan’s, wide and shocked. “He didn’t say—”

“I knew that we were,” he has to swallow twice to get the words out, “married. But,” he flounders. “Names. We never talked about names.”

“Oh.” Adam traces a line on the ground, and Ronan watches in fascination as mistletoe springs up in the wake of his finger. Adam’s eyes go wide when he sees it, and his face flushes hot. “Oh my god.” He brings the heel of his palm down on the nearest one, like he intends to push it back into the ground, and hisses when the sharp edges bite into his palm. 

“I always thought those were Christmas plants,” Ronan says idly, watching as Adam makes increasingly frantic gestures to make them disappear, looking up like he is somehow hoping that Ronan won’t have noticed any of this.

“Shut up,” Adam hisses, and his face is red all the way down his neck, into the low neck of his shirt. The shirt is too big on him and it gapes in the front, showing the sharp lines of his clavicle, the smooth line of his breastbone. 

Ronan feels more comfortable in the wake of Adam’s discomfort. He reaches out and picks one of the stems, mindful of the sharp edges. He cocks his head at Adam. “A kissing flower?” 

“It’s not a flower, asshole,” Adam says, glaring down at the mistletoe. “It’s a weed.” He rubs absently at his hand, and Ronan can see small pinpricks of blood.

Ronan lets it fall to the ground, the berries bright against the grass. He reaches out, feeling like he is approaching a wild tiger, and takes Adam’s hand in his. Adam goes perfectly still, letting Ronan get a closer look at his palm. 

“You’ll live,” Ronan pronounces and his tone feels too light for the heavy moment that has settled over them.

Adam rolls his eyes. “It’s a miracle.” His eyes flick down to Ronan’s stomach again. He doesn’t try to pull his hand away, and Ronan doesn’t let him go. Carefully, mindful of Adam’s tendency to lash out when he feels emotionally exposed, Ronan uncurls Adam’s fingers and traces over the lines and creases.

“Are you trying to read my palm?” Adam asks, and it comes out soft, a whisper.

“I think I already know your future,” Ronan replies, and his tone is low to match.

Adam looks at him through his eyelashes, and if Ronan had thought it was a devastating look on older Adam, that is nothing to the effect it has on him now. And he knows that Adam isn’t trying to be flirtatious, is pretty sure that Adam wouldn’t even know how to be flirtatious, but it’s a striking look all the same. 

“Do you?” Adam asks.

Ronan drops his hand. “Yeah, you grow up to be an asshole.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ .

But then, to his surprise, Adam smiles like the sun coming out. “Yeah, I kinda do.” He moves closer, and it’s hard to breathe. Has the clearing always been this small? “But that’s ok. You’re an asshole too.”

“Am not,” Ronan says, and his gaze drops to Adam’s mouth. Adam licks his lips and God. That had to be deliberate. 

“Are too,” Adam says, and kisses him.

It’s nothing like the kiss from the dream, which was all heat and want and now.

This is slow, tentative. It feels like a first kiss should, Adam’s lips sliding over his, parting and returning. Ronan feels as though his heart is going to explode out of his chest. Adam runs a careful tongue over Ronan’s mouth, and Ronan opens his mouth, letting Adam set the pace.

He leans back when Adam puts his hands on Ronan’s shoulders and guides him, until Ronan’s head rests on a bed of moss. He’s pretty sure that moss was not there a second ago. Still, he wants. He wants the feel of Adam’s hair in his fingers, the taste of Adam’s skin under his mouth, the press of Adam’s body in his palms. He opts for the safest, letting his hands fall naturally to the jut of bone at Adam’s hips.

To his surprise, Adam allows the contact, only presses closer and licks into Ronan’s mouth like he’s done it a hundred times before. Ronan feels jealousy flare— _ has  _ he done it before? Had Adam kissed that other Ronan, that future self who had the life Ronan desperately wanted? He pushes the thought away—it’s not worth dwelling on. Even if Adam is still in love with Blue, or waiting for a Ronan who won’t exist for another ten years, or even just pressured by a future he doesn’t want to live, at least Ronan has this. 

All too soon, Adam pulls back, propping himself up on one hand to look down at Ronan. Ronan looks back at him, not flinching from Adam’s stare. Ronan stares a bit himself. Just-kissed is a good look for Adam, with his red lips and flushed cheeks. His hair is still too neat though, and his breath is too even. Ronan will have to do better.

To his surprise, Adam’s gaze drops again to Ronan’s stomach, and he lifts his free hand to hover just above Ronan’s stomach before he pulls back. 

Adam’s gaze goes to Ronan’s face, back to his stomach, and he lets his hand fall back to the grass. He looks tired. 

Ronan can feel queasiness lurking at the edges of his consciousness. Does Adam regret this? Had Adam hated the future, hated the life they apparently shared? Ronan knows better than anyone how much Adam wants to be independent. Adam would hate the idea of marriage, a legal contract that trapped him in someone else’s life.

“What are you thinking?” Adam asks.

Ronan shakes his head, because he won’t lie to Adam, but he can’t bear to tell the truth. Adam frowns at him. Ronan lets his head drop back to the moss, tilted up at the sky. It’s a clear, perfect blue. “No light show, this time.” Had Adam only wanted that because he had been so sure that it was a dream? Because that much had been clear. 

Except, Adam doesn’t blush, doesn’t duck his head and demure at the thought of their shared dream, at the reminder of heated kisses and hands pressed to skin. Adam goes pale at the reminder, and his hand goes again to Ronan’s stomach, this time resting fully on the fabric of Ronan’s shirt. 

Then, Ronan understands. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “It was just a scratch.” 

Adam makes a choked, desperate sound. “A scratch.”

“It was just a dream,” Ronan tries, anything to get that look off of Adam’s face. 

The look Adam gives him could freeze a lake in high summer. “I have seen you die from a dream, Ronan Lynch. Don’t you dare,” he sucks in a breath, and it sounds painful, “Don’t you dare.” He looks desperate, looking at Ronan with so much caring, so much worry and Ronan just—can’t.

He digs his fingers into Adam's hair—God, the _sound_ he makes—and pulls him into a kiss, and it’s everything that the last one wasn’t, wet and filthy and needy. Ronan keens as Adam licks over his teeth, biting into his mouth and claiming him. 

“I’m okay,” Ronan says between kisses, gasping for air. “I’m fine.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Adam says, and he kisses Ronan like he wants to punish him for it, which, yes. “I hate you so much, oh my God.” Adam gives the lie to the words as he pushes Ronan into the ground, holding him down like he never wants Ronan to move again.

Ronan keeps his own touch gentle, thinking about what he would do at the sight of Adam, broken and bleeding beside him. “I’m okay,” he says again when Adam breaks off. Adam pants for breath, and now he looks properly kissed, his hair a tangled wreck around his face and his chest heaving. “Here.” Ronan takes Adam’s hand and slides it up under his shirt, watching Adam’s face as he does. 

The way Adam’s mouth drops open, the way his breath comes in a stuttered gasp, the way he looks at Ronan, God, it’s even better than the touch of Adam’s fingers on his skin. Adam traces over the scars, feather light and careful.

Then Adam drops his gaze to Ronan’s stomach like he has clearly been waiting to, hiking Ronan’s shirt up to expose the line of his stomach, the still healing scars. 

“God, Ronan,” Adam whispers, tracing over the worst mark with trembling fingers.

“Thanks,” Ronan chokes out. “I work out.”

Adam laughs, and if it comes out a bit wet, neither of them is going to say anything about it. “God, you asshole. I can’t believe I married you.”

Ronan gasps, and his stomach jumps under Adam’s fingers. 

Adam looks up at him, and his eyes are wide and so very blue. “Oh,” Adam breathes. “Oh.” He surges up to kiss Ronan, his hand a hot brand on Ronan’s stomach. Ronan pushes up into it, into the hand on his stomach, Adam’s mouth on his. 

He has no idea if this will be something that he gets to keep, if the future that Adam spoke of will ever be his. He hopes so, God, he hopes so, but for now, this is enough. 

* * *

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. I honestly was not sure I would finish in time, and what it would look like if I did. 
> 
> But as it turned out- I'm really proud of this chapter. And the truth is, I could NEVER have done it without the (literally) tireless help of my beta Rhein, who was up with me for the last 5 hours helping me with my final pass.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr under the same name!


End file.
